Expanding Classes is one of three new releases for Castles and CrusadesExpanding Classes is pure character creation/stats/crunch. This twenty-six page PDF (that count includes cover, title pages and the legal mumbo-jumbo) tackles something that, surprisingly, hasn’t been fully covered in Castles & Crusades after all this time. I’m talking about multiclassing and dual-classing. For a game so steeped in OD&D, one would think this would have been covered by now. In fact, it hasn’t. There is less than page on the topic in the Player’s Handbook Now, that isn’t to say people haven’t been doing these things in their game. They’ve just been using 1/2e AD&D rules to do so. Now though, we finally have a short (but expensive) supplement for these rules and more.

So let’s talk about the five options that you have here in Expanding Classes:

1) Multi-Classing. This is where, instead of having a single class, say Fighter or Cleric, you have two classes like Ranger/Druid or Assassin/Bard. There’s a nice little cross-reference chart so you can see which of the thirteen classes can multi-class together. This means you can’t do a Paladin/Assassin or Barbarian/Wizard, but there is always wiggle room if you have a good reason and a willing Castle Keeper. The downside to multi-classing if you advance a lot slower as you have two classes you are trying to level up, and some classes may have weapon/armor/spell restrictions that hinder your second class. Essentially this is the same as old school AD&D multi-classing

2) Enhanced Class. This is essentially an “enhanced” and deeper version of the “Class and a half” idea that is briefly mentioned in the PHB after multi-classing. Again, there is less than a page for this there. With Expanding Classes, you get a lot more detail and depth on the topic. An Enhanced class gives you a few aspects of a second class, but not all of them. This is great if you have a character who say, went to Wizard school but flunked out and has a little to show for his time spent there. There are over two dozen supporting class options, and again, a chart to cross reference so you can see if your idea is legal or not. Each of these supporting classes has its own XP chart to show you what you get at each level. Essentially your cost to level up your supporting class is only half of what a full class would cost, but you only get a fraction of the abilities and advance much slower.

3) Class Plus. This adds the zero level abilities from another class to your character for a permanent 5% tithe of all experienced earned. That may or may not be worth it to you, as at higher levels, that is a lot of experience to give up just to have access to cantrips or 1d3 unarmed Monk attacks but hey, more power to you if you want to go this route. Class Plus is the weakest of the options in Expanding Classes and I doubt many will make use of it. Hell, even Troll Lord Games doesn’t put much stock in it, giving the idea less than half a page in this supplement.

4) Dual Classing. This is very different from the AD&D version of Dual Classing. A character is a single class until some pivotal moment in their adventuring career and then they decide to switch completely to another class. Maybe they were a Barbarian who found God and became a cleric. Maybe they were a Ranger but went blind and decided to become a Diviner instead since they couldn’t track anymore. There are lots of reasons why a second class might be added later in life instead of starting off via multi-classing. Once the second class is chosen, XP is evenly divided between the two and you level up as usual. The catch is that the character only gets new Hit Points when it gains a level in its original class. This doesn’t sound or seem too bad unless you are really high level. After all, if you are a level 16 Fighter/Level 1 Bard, you will have a ways to go before you see an increase in your HP. At least you’ll get some spells and Legend Lore out of it!

5) Reclassing. This is where a character abandons their original class completely and takes up something new. OD&D fans will recognize that this is the TSR version of Dual Classing and Troll Lord is simply calling it “reclassing” for Castles & Crusades since they are using Dual Classing in a different fashion. It’s not an exact port from AD&D to C&C as you lose a level (and HD) for doing this but otherwise, it’s similar down to the 10% XP penalty for using skills/abilities from the previous class in an adventure. Although the name change may confuse or annoy older games, calling this Reclassing actually does make more sense than calling it Dual Classing., so I’m fine with it.

So these are the five options in Expanding Classes. It’s a bit pricey for a supplement, especially content than some might argue should be in the PHB, but hey this is still less than a Pathfinder supplement of the same size, so while a bit pricey to me, it’s still nowhere as bad as what some companies charge for their supplements. There is actually a little more content than these five options. There is an Appendix A which gives an update to the Rune Mark class originally found in the Rune Lore supplement. I have neither read nor own the Rune Lore supplement so I can’t actually comment on it. Essentially this appendix just applied all five options found in this Expanding Classes book to the Rune Mark class for players who might actually have made one of these characters. It’s a nice addition to include details for a character class only a fraction of C&C players know about or have much less played, which shows how much Troll Lord cares about its player base.

Overall, Expanding Classes is not a must-own supplement for Castles & Crusades by any means. It’s well written and was a long time coming, but much of what is contained in here is already common sense to older gamers, especially AD&D players and has no doubt been house ruled in by using the rules from TSR’s version(S) of D&D. Still, younger or newer gamers will find this helpful and Troll Lord Games did a fine job on this piece. I personally think seven dollars is a bit high for this type of supplement, but if you DO pick up Expanding Classes, and you are a C&C fan, you won’t be unhappy with what is presented here.

I go through phases with my hobbies. I tend to cycle between video games, pen and paper RPGs and miniature wargaming as my activities of choice. Currently I’m on miniatures (primarily Warhammer and Batman Miniature Game. However, it’s hard to find a good magazine on the subject. Sure, there are countless mediocre blogs that are mostly fanboy fapping without any shred of understanding journalism, but that’s 2016 for you. There are two UK based tabletop gaming magazines, but again, there is very little quality content in either. It’s mostly just “I LIKE THIS GAME AND SO SHOULD YOU.” Occasionally they have a good how-to article or an actual in-depth look at a system’s rules, but these are rare rather than the norm. So imagine my surprise when I found a DriveThruRPG review request for this magazine I had never heard of entitled The Golden d6. It turned out to be an Australian based miniature gaming magazine. I flipped through a list of their back issues and found one covered Amy Snugg’s fantastic Lizardmen/Seraphon army (that is one of my big WFB/AoS armies myself) and that this issue had a miniature of Bad Ash from Army of Darkness on the cover! That was all I needed to agree to give this magazine a look see. So after flipping through the 55 pages of content and covers, have I finally found a quality wargaming magazine other than White Dwarf (which should tell you something right there), or The Golden d6 more fanzine than magazine?

The first article in this issue of The Golden d6 is about Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars Imperial Assault. Granted I’m not a Star Wars person, but I was happy to see this was a full battle report. Battle Reports are the best way to envision how a game works and flows other than actually playing it. So few publications do these anymore, which is a shame and I was happy to see The Golden d6 started right off with one. In this case we see the writer and his friend play through a scenario entitled “The Art of Robotics” from the Wookie Warriors pack. The Empire side was Boba Fett and some Bantha Riders against some nine wookies. The pictures in this article showcase exactly what is being played. This way even if you are not familiar with any of the miniatures’ names, you will be before you get to the meat of the article, which is fantastic. Both teams are laid out, along with their strategies and then the breakdown of each gaming turn occurs. The battle lasted four turns with both the Wookies and Mercs switching the lead several times throughout the game. I really enjoyed reading this, and as I have said, I’m not a big Star Wars fan. This was exactly what a battle report should be and other publications should take note.

After this is a quick interview with Osprey Publishing’s Andrea Sfiligoi. It doesn’t really talk about his games. It’s more a personal interview than dev commentary. After that is a seven page article on Guild Ball. There are lots of Fantasy football games out there made by companies like Games Workshop and Mantic Games, but Guild Ball is a fantasy Soccer game. Each player has a team of six characters who try to score goals or maim their opponents. This is a pretty in-depth article, discussing rules and miniatures alike. It’s very informative but the writing/editing in this article could use a little work. Sometimes it’s called Guild Ball, while other times it is Guild Ball. The official name is indeed Guild Ball, which can be seen from the original Kickstarter, but I’m not sure whether to blame the author or editor for the numerous run-on sentences and mistakes like this in the piece. A little cleaning up would have gone a long way with this article, but I still enjoyed it for what it was.

The next seven page article is coverage of the Australian X-Wing championship. Again, not my game of choice, but the article was well written, flowed nicely and was easily to follow. The latter is especially helpful if you’re not a diehard fan of the game. After all, pieces like this are intended to interest new people in the game, not preach to the choir. In this respect, the article did its job and then some. Again, I have no inkling to play X-Wing (I have enough minis games in my life, thank you), but I had fun reading this article.

After this comes a five page look at a new range of paints from WarColors. It’s an interesting look and I was very intrigued by the colored metallic paints (not just silver, gold, steel, etc). The paints seem to be well made and cost less than a lot of others like Citadel, Reaper and Vallejos (the three main kinds I use), so it may be worth picking up a few for my Stormcast Transformers army.

Next is the feature article, which covers a Deadite (as in Army of Darkness) for Frostgrave, including a one of a kind Bad Ash sculpted by Bob Olley just for this article (make it available to the public Bob! I only have the Zombicide: Black Plague one!). I have a few of Bob’s figures, including his recent Undead Dwarves from the Dungeon Monsters Kickstarter. I’ve strongly considered getting a Vampire Hunter D, Zartan, Serpentor or Cobra Commander style miniature made by him, so it’s great to see a custom like this in the magazine. There isn’t a lot of depth to the article if you’re looking for an explanation of Frostgrave‘s rules or how the army will be used. No, it’s just the author talking about how we assembled his army for Frostgrave, which studios made the models and how it all came together. There’s a very brief overview of Frostgrave fluff at the beginning, but otherwise it’s all personal anecdote, which is what an article of this nature should be. There are lots of lovely pictures and commentary. About the only thing missing was a paint guide to how the author spiffed up Bad Ash. Well, maybe a link to buy the mini too. What’s here was a nice article on a personal customization of an army and I enjoyed it for what it was.

Three articles left. The next is a fictionalization of Warhammer battle between Dwarves and Elves. I would have preferred an actual turn by turn breakdown, especially since this is the third in a third part series, but that’s my fault for coming late to the party. The article REALLY needed an editor as punctuation and grammar are missing throughout the piece. As a blog post of fanfiction, this is fine. In a professionally done magazine that people pay for, this is not. This was easily the weakest piece in the magazine and highlights the one issue I’ve had with The Golden d6: it’s needs far better editing if people are going to pay money for this.

The penultimate article is “Build Me a River” and it is a lovely how-to create your own water terrain from scratch. Lovely! The article spans seven pages and has a LOT of step by step pictures to help you if you decide to follow suit and make this yourself. The end result is quite nice and this might be the best article in the issue, along with the Rebel Assault battle report.

The final article is simply a collection of pictures from one man’s World Eaters army for Warhammer 40,000. The paint jobs are excellent and the conversions are quite nice. The best part of the piece however, was the author talking about his personal fluff for his army. It’s well done and something you would probably see in a White Dwarf at some point.

So there you go. That’s this issue of The Golden d6. It a new magazine, so there is room to grow and certainly room for improvement as well. I enjoyed it for what it is and there were some fun pieces in here. Right now though the magazine costs a little more than the physical version of the now defunct weekly White Dwarf and twice as much as the digital, so if price is an issue, you might want to wait for a sale on these issues – especially since there is nothing time sensitive here. That said, I love the range of games and products covered in this magazine and it’s great to see both variety and quality here. I will probably pick this up on occasion depending on what the article list is in future issues. You might want to consider doing the same.

Usually I’m a bit quicker with reviewing Call of Cthulhu releases as they come out. Case in point, the Seventh Edition Keeper’s Screen and adventures. However, both the Investigator’s Handbook and the Keeper’s Guide (AKA the core 7e rulebook) had some typos and errata that needed to be fixed. So I decided to hold off on my review of the games while the forum-goers at Yog-Sothoth volunteered their editing skills to Chaosium for free. That way my review wouldn’t have a section devoted to paragraphs of negativity in that regards – especially since PDFS are editable the same way video games are patchable these days. Now, if my leatherette copies of the books have that many typos… those reviews will be a bit more scathing in regards to proofreading. Plus I’ve written seventeen other reviews since 7e COC came out, so it’s not as if I haven’t providing you with worthwhile content, right? Now let’s talk about the book.

The Investigator’s Handbook is not a complete Call of Cthulhu rulebook. It is, as the title suggests, devoted purely to the subject of Investigators. For those new to Call of Cthulhu (and shame on you for that), an Investigator is your Player Character. So in many ways, think of the Investigator’s Handbook as the equivalent of the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, with the Core Rulebook acting as a combined Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide. Don’t worry though, unlike that other venerable role playing game, Call of Cthulhu still has character creation rules in the core rulebook. The Investigator’s Handbook is simply a much more in-depth look at creating and playing characters in this new edition of Call of Cthulhu. For longtime Call of Cthulhu veterans, think of the book as a Seventh Edition version of the classic 1920’s Investigator’s Handbook from the 1990s that many of us have used religiously since its release (perhaps through Byhakee). Either way, the Investigator’s Handbook is not necessary to play a game of Call of Cthulhu where the Core Rulebook IS, so if you don’t have a lot of disposable income to spend, go with that book (which we’ll review later in the week) rather than this one. That said, the Investigator’s Handbook is extremely well done, gives you more options in terms of occupation and advice on character building that you wouldn’t have otherwise. If you’re a big Call of Cthulhu player or a Keeper who wants to give their friends a look at the CoC rules without revealing monster stats or the adventures in the back that they will be playing next week, the Investigator’s Handbook is definitely worth its price tag – especially digitally.

Chapter One in the Investigator’s Handbook is “Introduction.” This is the usual, “How to play a role-playing game” section, along with an overview of what one can expect from Call of Cthulhu. The chapter also gives an example of play, which highlights some of the changes that come with this new edition. Now, many of the changes between Sixth and Seventh Edition CoC are superficial and have little to no impact on how you already play the game. We’ll only cover the character creation bits later in this review as they pop up. Other rule changes will have to wait for the Core Rulebook review, since that is where they are covered. Anyway, “Introduction” is short and reminds newcomers of things they will need to play the game, like dice, character sheets and an imagination. If you’ve ever played a tabletop RPG before, you can easily skip this chapter and not feel like you have missed anything. It’s well written though, so it won’t hurt for you veterans to skim it over.

Chapter Two is “The Dunwich Horror.” This is literally just a reprinting of Lovecraft’s famous short story. For newcomers, it’s an introduction to Lovecraft’s writing style as well as the tropes and creatures one might run across in a typical Call of Cthulhu adventure. In previous editions of Call of Cthulhu, the Core Rulebook reprinted The Call of Cthulhu, which made sense because both share the same name, and it’s probably Lovecraft’s best known work as well as featuring his best known creation. In 7e CoC, we don’t have any story in the Core Rulebook, and The Dunwich Horror in the Investigator’s Handbook. Like much of Seventh Edition, this change feels like change merely for the sake of change. A fresh coat of paint or optical illusion making 7e feel different from previous editions, when in fact it’s 95-99% the same game as it was when it was first spawned decades ago. At the same time, when you step back and look at the changes from the point of view of bringing in newcomers to the game, replacing The Call of Cthulhu with The Dunwich Horror makes a lot of sense. Although The Call of Cthulhu made sense on one level, The Dunwich Horror feels more like a what a Call of Cthulhu ADVENTURE novelization would be read like. It fits the game better mood and theme-wise, and also lets newcomers understand what most adventures will feel like, in addition to what Investigators are in for. So the change is neither bad nor good – it’s simply a change that makes sense on some levels and not at all on others. It just depends on your PoV. This is true of ANY Edition for ANY game that comes out, hence why we have the phrase, “Edition Wars.” So I’m okay with this change, but I do wish the Core Rulebook had kept The Call of Cthulhu to compliment it. It would allowed both stories to be found by newcomers and would have kept everyone happy. However, this is 2014, and it’s not like you can’t find everything Lovecraft has ever written on some public domain website anyway.

Chapter Three is “Creating Investigators.” Here is where you get the character creation rules. I have to admit, back when I read through (and had to review) the Quick Start Rules for CoC 7e, I was really worried. The character creation rules in that were abominable and merely made cookie cutter generic characters. They were terrible the same way the rules for making D&D characters in the RPGA were horrible. Both were an odd change to set specific stats instead of die rolling. Making this change for CoC 7e was especially troubling, as previous editions of the game included the normal rules for character generation. Couple the fact that The Haunting took up twice the page count as it used to because of the mechanics change (it would later just be that the team did a terrible job converting and explaining the new mechanics rather than any real significant problem with the changes to the rules set) and CoC 7e made a disastrous first impression on me. Thankfully, as this chapter shows, the final version of character creation is nearly the same it has always been. What little changes have been made are more a different way of writing down the same data/dice rolls.

So what has changed? Well character creation is still pretty much the same. You’re rolling 3d6 or 2d6+6 for your stats. However, now you’re multiplying the end result by 5, giving you a number of 90 or less. So why make this change? Well, skills in Call of Cthulhu have always been percentile based, so this is a cosmetic change so that you don’t have, say a 14 in Strength but a 67% in Quantum Physics. Instead you’d now have a 70% in Strength. It’s a small visual change that makes the character sheet look uniform. That’s it. It’s not a big deal. Well, it’s a big deal if you’re a veteran and your mind is still reading things the old way, causing you to crap your pants seeing a monster than now has 250 Strength Stat instead of 50. Newcomers and casual Call of Cthulhu fans will adapt to the changes a lot easier because they aren’t conditioned after 10-30 years of see CoC stats written in the same old fashion. It’s a paradigm shift, as veteran CoC’ers will have to break their conditioned way of reading stat blocks, but the new version works exactly the same as previous editions did. It’s just now, instead of being told “Make a CONx5 Roll,” you just make a CON roll. The change is neither good nor bad. It’s a visual change, not a mechanical one; I can’t stress that enough.

Some other, smaller changes are that the character sheet now lists half and fifth roll values for Hard and Extreme rolls respectively. In the past, a Keeper could make you roll a stat or skill at an arbitrarily reduced value, because the challenge was greater. So that Dodge roll you normally make at 75% could be reduced to 55%, 38% or whatever. Now, the character sheet has you put these values in right away and names specific types of rolls where they would be used. What this does is make the game run smoother during an adventure. You don’t have to do fiddling basic math to determine a roll value, as it’s already on your character sheet. However, it does only give Keeper’s two options. So all those x3, x4 or whatever rolls are essentially gone. Of course, they don’t have to be in your own homebrew game, but again, we see a rules change that is neither outright good or bad, but a little of both.

There are some bigger changes, like your Luck stat. In previous editions it was your POW score x5 and was a permanent stat. Now Luck is determined by 2d6+6 multiplied by 5 and is a shifting stat, similar to Sanity Points. Idea and Know stats (and thus their rolls) are also completely removed from the character sheets and so out of sight, out of mind. They still somewhat exist (you’ll see them referenced in Chapter Eight) but they might as well not. I’m a little less happy about this, because Idea rolls were always a way for a Player to see if the Keeper could throw them a bone where they were completely stumped. Luck as a sliding scale trait is perhaps the biggest change to CoC 7e, and like many of the changes, I see the pros and cons. On one hand, there was no need for the change. Luck worked well as it was and there was no need to change it. On the other hand, as a shifting scale stat, you can now spend Luck to help other rolls at the cost of having a lower Luck stat down the road. After all, eventually luck does run out… even for Gladstone Gander.

The other two notable changes include the addition of a Build Stat and how MOV (movement) is calculated. Now these two stats are perhaps the weakest changes in the game. Build because no one was clamoring for it. It’s an unnecessary and rather poorly thought out stat and I’ve yet to talk to anyone that is actually using it or liking it. It almost certainly won’t survive to 8th Edition. Essentially the idea is that Build gives you more of a damage bonus because as the book says, “Larger and stronger creatures…do more physical damage then their smaller brethren,” which is a hugely erroneous statement that anyone with a smattering of anatomy, biology or fighting background can tell you is incorrect. This is why middleweights in UFC/PRIDE/Etc are considered to be better fighters and have stronger attacks than Heavyweights. This is what is essentially the “Vince McMahon” fallacy in that big guys somehow do more damage than a smaller counterpart. It’s a shame to see Call of Cthulhu add this in. Sure a rhino hurts worse than a mouse, but that was something already calculated in attacks and that’s also a huge size distance. Build is just an outright terrible idea and I’m kind of surprised the idea made it past playtesting.

MOV has similar, but far more minor, issues. It’s determined by whether DEX or STR is greater than your SIZ rating. If both stats are less than SIZ, MOV = 7. If one stat is higher or equal to SIZ, MOV = 8. If both are higher, MOV = 9. Again, this is an interesting addition to the game but poorly thought out and not even close to grounded in how MOV should be calculated. Strength and Size aren’t the ultimate factors in speed and distance. This probably should have been DEX and CON. DEX for agility and reaction time and CON for endurance and keeping a speed maintained. This is better thought out than build by far, but the stats and determination are definitely off here. Again, something that shouldn’t have made it past playtesting but it did and is unfortunately canon in the form it takes. Alas.

So we’ve seen the two negative changes to character creation, but there are also some obvious positives as well. EDU can’t go into the twenties and thus give you a 100% or higher Know roll now. That was always a bit. I also love that Skill Points are just based on your EDU stat know. It always seemed off that a PC would be penalized for playing a Hobo and thus get dramatically less skill points simply because of his EDU rating. He could have picked up skills like hide, spot hidden and track with the same percentages a Scientist might have chemistry and geology. Now your skill points are based on a stat appropriate to your chosen occupation, which is AWESOME and a long time coming. I also love the renewed emphasis on Credit Rating in the game. Over the years, the importance of this skill outside of Cthulhu by Gaslight has dwindled dramatically to where I rarely see it called for in adventures or by Keepers. That will definitely changes with 7e, which is really nice. Another new change are a few optional packages for experienced investigators. You get some extra skill points in exchange for a few subtractions in other areas. For example the Police package can net you 60 extra skill points in exchange for a loss of 1d10 sanity and some scar, injury or phobia being attached to the character. Very cool.

So yes, there are some changes I think are terrible, some I absolutely love and most aren’t really changed to me, but are instead of different way of writing up a character sheet. Most people will probably feel the same way, although what they like/hate will probably be different. Again, this is going to happen with any game getting a new edition. Overall though, I’m pretty pleased with 7e and think it’s a good update of the system, even if the system didn’t necessarily need one.

Aside from all this, the chapter gives you the re-creation of Harvey Walters in 7e form, some random tables to help you make a character background and a strong emphasis on creating a rich back story for your Investigator, who admittedly might be eaten by Deep Ones on his or her first adventure. The chapter also includes alternate ways of character creation including the loathsome Quick Start version they threw at us but several other methods that feel like they were pulled from AD&D 2e, which is not bad (I love 2e!), but they are almost in the same exact order those alt character creation methods were listed…so that was odd.

Chapter Four is “Occupations” and this is simply a very long list of well, character occupations. If you’re new to CoC, think of your Occupation as a class. Instead of being a Fighter or Decker, you’re a Criminologist, cowboy or librarian. There are over 100 Occupations in this book and if you still can’t find one you want, work with the Keeper to make your own. Want to be a Ninja – it’s not in the book, but you can easily make that Occupation! Some occupations are also listed with tags like “Classic” or “Lovecraftian” to help people choose if they want a more “authentic” character, but obviously these are optional. If you really want to be a circus clown in 1890s London, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be! Each Occupation gets a paragraph or two of description and then a list of how their skill points are generated, Credit Rating range and a list of skills for the job. A member of the Clergy gets EDUx4 skill points while Diver gets EDUx2 + Dexx2 skill points. Some jobs even has sub-sets with different skill sets. A Driver can be a Taxi Driver or a Chauffeur in addition to just plain old Driver. Fantastic. I love all these options and this chapter alone is worth purchasing the Investigator’s Handbook for. Oh if only 7e was compatible with my beloved Byhakee program.

Chapter Five is Skills and similar to the previous chapter except than it focuses on well…skills. That should be obvious. Here you get a list of all the skills in the game (although you can always make some more if needed), what the percentage essentially means and an explanation of how to push a skill. Pushing is a new concept where if you fail your roll, you get a second chance if you want. However if you fail this second roll too, something bad happens. In truth, this isn’t a new aspect of the game but rather something a lot of people house ruled in and it’s simply become canon with 7e. Like with any addition of CoC, some skills from the previous version are gone entirely, some are combined and some new skills are added. This is what it is. It’s simply a fact of CoC edition changes and I can’t imagine anyone will be surprised or outraged by what is here. Chapter Four is simply an in-depth look at each skill to help newcomers understand what exactly each skill lets them do. It’s very well done and even longtime players will enjoy flipping through this chapter.

Chapter Six is “Investigator Organizations,” which begins a trend for this latter half of the book. The trend being well written and entertaining fluff CoC fans will enjoy reading but is in no way necessarily to play the game. Some might regard these sections are superfluous, but I think they provide an excellent service, especially for newer CoC games. Take this chapter for example. It gives examples of how to create a unified team of investigators instead of having each player make their own and watch the Keeper squirm as they try to create a sensible cohesive narrative that brings say, a bus driver, diplomat from Ghana and a member of the KKK together for they adventure they have decided to run. You get an overview of how to create a group concept as some interesting examples ranging from some war buddies to a circus. Fun! There are also some pre-generated character examples for each of the groups described here in case a Keeper wants to use one.

Chapter Seven is “Life as an Investigator.” This is an especially useful section for people new to RPGs as it talks about the usual process a character or party goes through to solve an investigative adventure like those normally found in CoC. You get ways to gather information, how to create plans and also how to enact them without being horribly murdered by cultists or eaten by Yig. Things like that. It’s a very fun chapter that once again, contains information most veterans of the game know instinctively, but it’s so well written, you’ll have run reading it. That can easily be said about a lot of this book and god knows I’ve repeated those statements in this review several times but remember, Core Rulebooks are written with new players or those that have been out of the loop.

Chapter Eight is “The Roaring Twenties.” This is a quick historical overview of the main time period Call of Cthulhu is played in. It’s very detailed and covers a myriad of different aspects of the time period from social issues to technology. It’s fantastic. If you’re wondering what is accurate equipment for the time period, what kinds of cars or guns you can have or how much a paper cost in 1923, you’ll find it here. The chapter is mostly fantastic but there are some notable problems with the biographies. For example, the piece on Lindbergh gets a lot wrong and leaves out the fact he was a pro Nazi-sympathizer and went from being one of America’s greatest heroes to pretty hated by the people of the time period. I mean, is it too on the nose to make a joke about this version of CoC being written by Brits that somehow aren’t Bill Bryson fans? Anyway, if I were you, I’d go with the far more accurate One Summer: America, 1927 for accurate information about not just the people listed in the biographies in this section, but also for a look at the 1920s atmosphere as a whole. It’s a great book and again, far more accurate if you’re looking for personalities of the era. Still, Chapter Eight is still excellent as a whole and you’ll get a lot of use out of it.

Chapter Nine is “Advice For Players.” This is simple a bunch of essays to promote better gaming amongst a group. How to handle disagreements with Keepers and other players, the difference between character and player knowledge and so on. There are also some fun reminders like, “Don’t rely on guns.” and that Idea/Know rolls still exist in some nebulous fashion. Perhaps the most important part of the chapter revolves around sanity and how to roleplay that slow (or god forbid quick) descent into madness that comes hand in hand with the Cthulhu Mythos. Too many gamers have the terrible “Malkavian” way of roleplaying crazy, which is to say they just do stupid random crap and call it “insanity.” The essays on sanity in this chapter are a must read even for veterans because this is a common problem even amongst those of us that have been playing CoC for decades.

Call of Cthulhu? You’ll find them here. Want six pages of weapon stats? Here you go! It also contains the same set of conversion information that Chaosium has been putting into 7e adventures that have been released prior to these core rulebooks coming out. After that you get the maps that also come with the Keeper’s ScreenInvestigator’s Handbook. Hope you stayed with me through the whole thing.

Or have we? We’ve covered all the content but there are two other points I want to make about the book. The first is that the entire Investigator’s Handbook is in FULL COLOR. This is a rarity for Chaosium and the book looks fantastic because of it. The art in the Investigator’s Handbook is some of the best I’ve seen in an English release of CoC. The book just oozes style in addition to being jam packed with high quality substance. I mean, just look at the art samples from the book that I plucked out to show in this review! I’m really happy with the overall product and am all the more excited to finally get my hands on the physical release.

Is the Investigator’s Handbook perfect? Oh my no. It’s a new edition and there will always be issues someone has when there is a change like this. There are a few bad ideas in 7e, but also some great ones. Most of the changes are minor or just cosmetic though, so there should be far less pushback or forum battles over the change from 6e to 7e than you see when games like Shadowrun, Dungeons & Dragons and the like have their extreme makeover ever few years. If you’re new to CoC, I say start with the Investigator’s Handbook. It’s a great read as well as an excellent primer on how to make and play an Investigator. It’s only twenty-some dollars for the PDF and you’re getting nearly three hundred pages of quality content for that amount. I can’t say 7e is going to replace 5e as my favorite version of Call of Cthulhu, but this is an excellent version of the game and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where the game goes from here. Ia Ia!

On Monday, November 17th, Chaosium finally released the 7th Edition of Call of Cthulhu. Well, the digital version anyway. Those of you who want to wait for the dead tree version (or pre-ordered/crowdfunded that edition) will have to wait a few more weeks for that. Since I know a lot of other people will be (are) talking about both the Keeper’s Guide and the Investigator’s Guide, I decided to start my coverage of the new Chaosium releases with the Keeper’s Screen Pack. After all, it’s going to be overlooked in favor of the two core rulebooks and because it comes with two adventures, it definitely deserves a piece done on it.

Now, as mentioned, this is a digital Keeper’s Screen Pack, not the eventual physical release we will be getting. This means the product comes as nine documents. You get six PDFs and then the two adventures in .epub, .Mobi and .prc formats (in addition to the previously counted PDF version). It’s great to see Chaosium trying to be so all-inclusive digitally. Compare that to a company like Games Workshop where their digital releases are iPAD only (lame) or a lot of releases industry wide that are PDF only. What a smart move by Chaosium because this ensures that any e-reader or computer can read and/or use these documents with their gaming group. Kind of. There is one big problem.

The Keeper’s Screen is divided into two PDFs – obverse and reverse. In both cases, they look like complete crap on an e-reader. Trying to enlarge them just creates a massive unrecognizable blob and at their default size the PDFs are simply illegible. That means you can’t use the reverse Keeper’s Screen as a digital cheat sheet. So both pieces are fundamentally worthless unless you are looking at a computer monitor to view them and who has their computer set up while gaming with friends unless you are doing it over Skype? As well, the PDF is not high quality enough to use in a print and play situation. It just does not look good printed off, which again, makes the Keeper Screen part of the Keeper Screen Pack fundamentally unusable unless you use your computer monitor as the screen and have it loaded up on a PDF reader. Obviously this won’t be a problem with the physical copy when it is released but right now the Keeper’s Screen is pretty painful to look at on an e-reader and almost laughable when printed out. So if you’re honestly looking to purchase the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Keeper’s Screen Pack in its current form or for a print and play option, for the love of god – DON’T. Wait for the physical copy or you will regret it.

Now that said, the layout of the Keeper’s Screen is fantastic and if I look at these PDFs as a teaser/preview of what I will eventually be getting in the mail, I’m pretty excited. The front side is a gorgeous tribute to a lot of tropes from the 1920s era of the game. A group of Investigators prepares to enter an ancient ruin built into the side of a mountain while some unnamable lurks in the nearby woods. It’s wonderful art and it might be my favorite Screen Art in many years. I’m not a big screen user as I tend to let my players see the dice (I don’t fudge for or against the group), but I have a few I really love for the art and ancillaries that came with it like Mayfair’s old DC Super Heroes one and the original V:TM screen. The front of the screen looks great and as long as you are patient for the physical copy, you won’t be disappointed.

The reverse side for the Keeper’s use is pretty nice too. It’s well laid out and very easy to find pertinent rules/mechanics on. I especially love the flowcharts for combat and death. These things are fantastic. At the same time, there are some areas that can use work. I appreciate the “Sanity Loss Examples” list and also a list of Insanity Effects. However it’s missing the rules for temporary/permanent Insanity or when you would roll to see if Insanity has set in. Now we long term fans of the game know these rules by heart, but for a newcomer, or at least someone new to running Call of Cthulhu, information like this would have been really helpful. Still, the majority of the information on the Keeper’s screen is great and will definitely see use, especially since a lot of the rules new to 7e like pushing and canon hard/extreme successes are on here. Again, the PDF is unreadable on all devices save computer monitors, so as good as the content is, you can’t use the digital version under most circumstances and so you should probably wait for the physical.

Of course, there is more to this package than just the two screen PDFs and some of those extras might entice you to pick this up in spite of how flawed the screen PDFS are. You also get three maps. The first is of Lovecraft Country. It shows the locations of Innsmouth, Kingsport, and of course Arkham is relationship to the rest of Northeastern Massachusetts. Because Dunwich is farther to the west, it gets its own inlay map showing its relative location in the state. It’s a decent enough map. It’s nothing fancy or mind blowing, but it gets the job done and will certainly be of use to any Keeper. The next map is of Arkham, MA. It’s not really a map as it doesn’t really show landmarks of points of interest. It’s just kind of an art piece and nothing more. There are close-ups of four districts like the Miskatonic Campus and French Hill but again, there is no real attempt at detail or defining places. So if you’re looking for where Pickman’s artist studio was, you’re out of luck. This was the weakest of the three maps in terms of usefulness, but it is rather pretty, especially the Lovecraftian art placed around the map. Finally we have the Call of Cthulhu world map which is the highlight of the set. It shows the canon locations of all sorts of locations. Not sure where R’lyeh is? Now you will! Thinking Irem is in Egypt because of Mummy: The Curse. This map will show you the correct location. So on and so forth. This is a really useful map and I love the layout. These three maps are a fine inclusion with the Keeper Screen but there’s a however coming. Ready? HOWEVER, these maps are all available with the purchase of the core rulebook/Keeper’s Guide. Now anyone who buys the Keeper’s Screen Pack is going to have the Core Rulebook. Sure there will be some weird rare scenarios where you’ll have this set but not the core rulebook, but those are so rare they are not worth mentioning. Besides, how would you run the game without the core book, you know? So these maps, as good as they are, are redundant and not worth buying this pack for. If Chaosium really wanted to entice someone to purchase the Keeper’s Screen Pack on its own, they should have included something exclusive to it.

So we’ve have a Keeper’s Screen you can’t actually use and some maps you probably already have via your Core Rulebook purchase. So things aren’t looking good for the digital version of this release are they? Well, not so fast. Remember how I said this pack needed something exclusive to make it worth your fifteen bucks? Well, there are two adventures that come with this set. Blackwater Creek and Missed Dues come bundled in a single 97 page PDF. Two adventures or a 100 page PDF is still a bit pricey for fifteen bucks but they are by far the highlight of the collection. Whether or not two published adventures are worth the price tag is going to be up to you and how much you enjoy each one. So let’s take a look at what each one entails.

Blackwater Creek has a team of Investigators travelling to a small rural Massachusetts to figure out the strange-goings on there. The adventure is really unique because you have two options for how to play it. You can be a traditional team of Miskatonic University staff members trying to track down a missing professor and his wife. The other options is that you play as a crew of bootleggers (It’s the 1920s and thus Prohibition era after all.) trying to muscle in on the whisky trade going on in Blackwater Creek. The whisky brewed there seems to be…unique and thus quite popular. The Investigators’ boss wants to take control of the region and its spirits and that’s where the PCs come in. There’s also a third option that the writer of the adventure hadn’t considered. Have you ever played any of those super Dungeons & Dragons adventures like Vault of the Dracolich where multiple parties do the adventure at the same time. If you have enough players, try that here. I ran this with a team of Miskatonic staff and a team of Bootleggers (the wonders of online gaming) and let one team’s actions affect the other. Together they were able to discover that the missing Professor (and wife) and the source of the strange whisky coming out of Blackwater Creek are interconnected. They also survived the Mythos encounter at the root of this piece once both groups came together where they probably would have died horribly had they tried their plan for success with a regular sized team of Investigators. It was a lot of fun and a really big change from the usual CoC rigmarole.

As mentioned, the core of the adventure is exploration and investigation, but there is room for a lot of physical conflict with everything from creepy mutated hillbilly bootleggers to crazed woodland creatures. More importantly, you’ll see player characters transformer mentally and physically as the adventure progresses. Think of it like Ravenloft power checks but creepier. Yes, CREEPIER. It’s also worth noting that the adventure’s text is extremely newcomer friendly, filled with advice and tips to help the adventure run smoothly. I almost feel that this adventure should be in the Core Rulebook since it’s geared towards holding the hand of a new or inexperienced Keeper. At the same time the adventure is very open ended and non-linear. It doesn’t even have a specific ending or endgame for the Keeper to follow. What happens is really up to the Investigators and how the Keeper plays off their actions/decisions. The adventure can be as mundane as fighting rivals for the bootlegging operations in the area or as Lovecraftian as dealing with a horrible Great Old One-Human hybrid transforming the region around it into a bizarre collection of fleshy bits and tentacle tree fetuses. Regardless how it goes down, Blackwater Creek is an adventure well worth experiencing. It also comes with several pages of handouts and six pre-generated PCs.

The second adventure in this set is Missed Dues and much like the first it has you playing as members of the criminal element from the 1920s. Unlike Blackwater Creek, there is no option to play as anything else. This makes the adventure extremely limited except in a one-shot pre-gen situation because it is exceedingly rare when all players will make the same basic character profession and doubly so where they all play as outright villains. So this probably was not the best thought out adventure or one to offer to the public in a two pack because it honestly won’t be used by very many gamers.

Of course, being a very niche adventure doesn’t make it a bad one. One shots are great if you doing gaming podcasts or have friends that can’t get together very often. Unfortunately the perceived quality of this piece is going to vary drastically by those that read it. Is it another yet another adventure that takes place within the confines of Arkham? Yes. So a bit uninspired there, but at the same time, it’s a familiar location Keeper’s can easily use. Is it the second adventure in a row that revolves around one set of hired goons muscling in on the territory of another? Yes it is. This is a shame because a bit of variety would have really helped this two pack. With the same plot hook shared by two adventures, it makes both adventures look weaker than if they were dramatically different from each other. Of course, had the adventures been placed in the opposite order I might be saying the previous lines about Blackwater Creek, but I doubt it since it’s designed better and has more than one option for character backgrounds. Again though those first impressions are deceiving because once you get into the adventure, you’ll see it is quite different.

In the PC ruffians have been sent to collect money from “Stick Jack” Fulton who hasn’t been paying his dues back to the larger crime syndicate in Arkham. Of course, it’s not really Jack’s fault but neither the PCs nor their employer knows this. See Jack was hired for a super secret job by a local religious organization (Cult) and unfortunately that job led to an indirect encounter with Azathoth, cursing himself, a few cult members and the entire apartment building Jack resides in with the attention of everyone’s favorite blind idiot god. Whoops. So the PCs go in thinking they are going to rough up a co-worker and instead get sucked into an interdimensional affair where Azazthoth is essentially an unwitting slum lord. Obivously the PCs will probably want a raise after this adventure.

Missed Dues follows the usual Call of Cthulhu tropes for beginning characters. They are told they have to deal with something mundane but through investigation, exploration and speaking with locals, they slowly begin to discover that they are in over their heads due to dealing with supernatural and/or alien happenings. Essentially Missed Dues is new set of drapes on the same old windows, but the window dressing is different enough that most players won’t care or notice unless they have played a LOT of Call of Cthulhu over the years. Then expecting some whining. I’ll admit I’m torn on this. On one hand it’s nice that the Keeper’s Screen offers a fairly basic linear adventure for new Keepers and players alike as it helps them learn the system, setting and stereotypes of the game. At the same time, aside from the gangster aspect, it is a fairly generic adventure in flow and form. I enjoyed it for what it is but if you or your friends are the type who feels people are just retreading the same old ground with published CoC adventures, you might not be a big fan of this one.

Overall, the / Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Keeper’s Screen Pack is a bit of a bust –at least digitally. The screen itself isn’t formatted for use with e-readers and it’s pretty useless on a computer monitor. The maps also come with the core rulebook so they are a bit redundant. At least you get two new adventures which may be worth $15 to some of you. I really liked Blackwater Creek and Missed Dues wasn’t completely generic so it will appeal to a small slice of CoC gamers. Are the two adventures worth the $15 price tag? No, I can’t say that they are. I’d pick it up for about ten bucks though. Wait for a pretty big sale on this if you get it at all. I can however say that if priced properly, the physical copy of the Keeper’s Screen WILL be worth getting. The screen is pretty useful, the art is wonderful and the two adventures are worth picking up if you can get a good price on the whole package. So yes, while this first of the big Call of Cthulhu, 7th Edition releases was on the disappointing side, there is some good to be had here and the physical version will probably be worth the wait.

Ah delays. They are not only to be expected with a Kickstarter campaign, but are generally a fact of life. If a backer is lucky, the company is apologetic and gives out some bonus freebies to offset the delays. We’ve seen Flying Buffalo do this with Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls for example. If a publisher is lucky, the backers are understanding and cordial, especially when the delay is the fault of a third party company. Although some backers for both of Chaosium’s Kickstarters have been less than understanding, Chaosium has been churning out a lot of free adventures for them to try and make up for the fact physical copies of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and Horror on the Orient Express are not available yet (although digital ones are). Recently Chaosium has given all of their backers in both campaigns a copy of the new Seventh Edition adventure Cold Harvest. While I am pretty used to Kickstarter problems and am a patient, accepting man with crowdfunding, I’m certainly not going to say no to a free adventure when it is offered to me. So I poured through Cold Harvest and found it to be a delight on multiple levels. It’s definitely something I can recommend to the rank and file of experienced Call of Cthulhu players.

One of the things that I really liked about Cold Harvest it that it was designed to be played with just a single Keeper and Investigator. You can certainly add more PCs if you want, but it’s so rare to see an adventure these days for a single player. We all know these are desperately needed. There will be times you and a friend want to game but the rest of the crew can’t get together. AD&D, Second Edition had eight or so adventures like these and they were all really top notch and fun. The concept of a solo adventure has died off (except for Tunnels & Trolls, which are more Choose Your Own adventure in style). Pagan Publishing did Alone on Halloween (which currently goes for $100 on the secondary market, so you know there is demand for this sort of thing) in this same fashion, but there are so few Call of Cthulhu adventures you can play by yourself or with a buddy that Cold Harvest becomes a breath of fresh (cold) air. After all, look at all the Lovecraft stories featuring only a single protagonist rather than a group of intrepid adventurers. This really should become a regular thing, but for some reason, it never has.

Another thing I enjoyed is the setting. Cold Harvest takes place in Soviet Russia during the late 1930s. There have only been a handful of adventures set during this time period and location, so it’s still a pretty unique way to play Call of Cthulhu. Let’s be honest, there are only so many adventures set in 1920s Arkham where you are doing battle with Shaggai or Deep Ones that a gamer can take before they start to get bored, so new locations, time periods and ideas are essential to keeping a game as old as CoC fresh. Even better, there is an Appendix in Cold Harvest that lists all the other adventures that take place in Russia, so an enterprising Keeper can round them all up and make a campaign out of them! Out of the four other adventures set in 1930s Russia that are shown in this Appendix, I only own and have played the Age of Cthulhu one, Shadows of Leningrad, which is really well done. So if you like Cold Harvest, you at least have a way to get more CoC content for the same time period and location. Yay!

So now let’s talk about the actual content itself. Although the PDF for Cold Harvest is sixty-seven pages long, the actual adventure only takes up thirty-three of those pages. So what makes up the rest of the page count in Cold Harvest? Well a lot of really neat and useful information actually! The piece starts off with a healthy dose of Keeper-only information, setting the stage for the adventure and also giving background information about what late 1930s Russia was like. Post-adventure, the content includes a whole host of NPC stats, an appendix of handouts for Investigators to look at, EIGHT pre-generated characters, a glossary of Russian terms used in the adventure, works of reference, the aforementioned list of other Russian adventures in the 1930s, and a conversion guide for those of you that don’t have (or want) Seventh Edition CoC but would like to play Cold Harvest with an earlier edition of the game. So there is a lot of content packed into this adventure beyond the scenario itself. I was impressed with how much fit into the sixty-some pages that make up Cold Harvest and I think most gamers will agree that even if they don’t care for the setting or adventure, the attention to detail and amount of effort that went into this piece deserves respect.

So with all that out of the way, it’s adventure discussion time! In Cold Harvest, you’ll be playing as a member of the NKVD aka the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs AKA the standard and secret police of Stalinist Russia. A member of the NKVD has a great deal of power and can easily have an average joe sent to a correctional labor camp or even killed if the agent feels someone is being Anti-Soviet/Anti-Communist. Realize that in Stalin’s Russia things like not working your hardest or being depressed count as being “Anti-Soviet.” So there are a wide range of things a NKVD agent can “write someone up” for. That said, for all the power and room for corruption in the agency, there is also a great deal of risk. If you fail an assignment, it might be you the agent who goes to a labor camp or gets a bullet in the brain stem. Plus there was constant turnaround, so one day you may have a boss that likes you and the next one who wants nothing more than to see you humiliated. It was a time of constant paranoia and backstabbing throughout an entire country and it had to be a horrific experience to live through. So keep in mind that while you are playing the adventure, you’re going to have to work together but also cover your own ass, even at the expense of the other Investigators unless you want to be dying of pneumonia in Siberia in a few months. Well, your character not literally you.

In Cold Harvest the Investigator(s) are sent to Krasivyi Okatbyr, a small sovkhoz (think collective farm commune) that has stopped its high production values. In addition, a member of the Sovkhoz has accused a household there of sabotage and anti-communist activities. The NKVD Investigators have been sent to detain the family and send them to hard labor service but also see why the camp has not been checking in properly or producing flax and beets at the same level it used to. Of course, Investigators can always arrest and detain even more residents if they need to. In fact, they can bring down the whole village if needed…which is a very real possibility depending on player actions and if they are purposefully being extreme Soviet hardline dicks. There are a lot of issues to report ranging from the entire collective suffering from ennui and depression, to some people being completely deranged and/or physically deformed. Also there has been a murder right before players arrive so surprise – another added wrinkling for the NKVD to deal with and report on in order to keep their higher quality apartment and shorter food lines.

Nearly all of Cold Harvest is discussion and investigation. The entire adventure can occur without any combat at all. Really, for the best atmosphere, combat should be limited or excised completely, but the author has put a few pieces in for gaming troupes that feel they need to stab or shoot something in a play session. Really though, the adventure revolved around making hard ethical and moral decisions weighed against saving one’s own ass (and their loved ones as family is punished too, you know). This adventure is primarily a horror story because of how Stalinist Russia treated its citizens and the overwhelming fear and oppression that stymied everyone in the country to some degree.

Of course, primary does not mean ENTIRELY. After all, it wouldn’t be a Call of Cthulhu adventure without something supernatural or alien going on. Otherwise this would be for BRP instead of CoC. There is indeed something not human at work in this little Russian farming community. Players and their Investigators will see some examples of it. Sometimes it will be very subtle to the point where players will assume something else is the cause or the act is a red herring rather than something otherworldly. Sometimes, it will be blatantly obvious spooky things are afoot. Generally the deeper Investigators dig and/or the more they attack/arrest/detain, the bigger and badder the events will be over the three days the NKVD are active in Krasivyi Okatbyr. Again, the adventure is best if the Investigators never actually encounter or solve the root of the problem, but the author has included some optional occurrences where that will happen for more combat minded players or those that need guaranteed story resolution and/or hand-holding. My advice is don’t give in and keep the players guessing while also frustrated because the creature is too smart to outwardly reveal itself. The end result is a great adventure where you really have to use your wits to get through things and where there is a constant ambiance of creepy terror. Best of all, there is no “correct” solution to the adventure. All the possible outcomes are unhappy to some degree and the Investigators will have to live with the decisions they made. Of course the individual and their fates don’t matter in the face of another glorious success for the People as a whole, eh comrade?

I really loved Cold Harvest. The setting, plot and ability for the adventure to be played by as little as a single Investigator were all terrific on their own. Combined, you have a fantastic piece that might not be for everyone, but exudes a high degree of quality. If you are looking for an adventure that will challenge you on multiple cerebral levels and leave you a bit uncomfortable (without being squicky) when all is said and done, then by all means, grab Cold Harvest. It’s a truly outside the box adventure that reminds the average CoC fan that not everything has to involve Arkham, ancient evil tomes or the usual Mythos antagonists. A fantastic freebie for Kickstarter backers and one worth paying money for when it because available to the general public.

While we are close to the two year past due date anniversary of Horror on the Orient Express to fully ship and the one and a half year late anniversary of 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu, Chaosium is at least still churning out the freebies for backers. Case in point, Nameless Horrors, which came about as a stretch goal for the 7e CoC Kickstarter. This collection contains six adventures from different time periods. There are two things that make this particular collection stand out though. The first is that the artwork is VERY different than a lot of recent releases. That’s not to say that CoC’s art has been lacking as of late or that the art in Nameless Horrors is bad. Art is very subjective. It’s more just to give you a head’s up that it look different from even other 7e releases. The cover is extremely striking too.

The other thing worth noting is that none of these adventures contain any traditional Mythos creatures, gods, monsters or beasties. Now obviously there are alien, eldritch and bizarre goings-on within Nameless Horrors, but you won’t find any ghouls, Deep Ones, shaggai, Mi-Go or other familiar Lovecraftian tropes in this collection. In many ways, it is similar to Pagan Publishing’s Bumps in the Night, which was a hit-or-miss piece that I reviewed three years ago. With Bumps in the Night, I adored the concept because it got writers to use the system everyone loved, but also forced them to be creative with their story ideas. Unfortunately the end result was two adventures I liked, one I hated and two that were merely okay. Does Nameless Horrors follow suit, or does it prove that a first party release can take the same concept and do it better?

As mentioned there are six adventures in Nameless Horrors. Each one takes place in a different time period and location. Each adventure is also designed specifically as a one-shot, but some of them do make attempts to be useable in an established campaign. I know some of you hate one-shots and prefer more flexible adventures. If that is the case, Nameless Horrors is probably not for you. As well, these adventures are designed for use with pre-generated characters (there are six for each adventure) and again, I bring this up since some gamers hate pre-gens and prefer to only make their own character. In this case, once again, Nameless Horrors is not something you should pick up. Sure, the adventures could be used with original characters, and each one tries to accommodate games that NEED their own characters, but these work best with the characters that are provided. Granted that between the one-shot experience of the adventures and the pre-generated characters, you will feel like you are “on-rails” for each of these adventures, but that’s not always a bad thing. If you and your gaming friends don’t get together that often, one of these would be perfect for that rare chance when you get to actually play a tabletop RPG. As well, the pre-gens and one-shot combination means you can start right up instead of spending hours rolling up characters. It’s also better for newer or casual gamers that are learning the game. You can focus on playing a role and understanding the mechanics instead of character creation to boot. So yes, Nameless Horrors is for a specific section of Call of Cthulhu fans, and there is nothing wrong with that. In some ways, this is like the Halloween or Blood Brothers collection in that you are acting a character someone else has designed and thought up. Much like a play or movie. Again, there are positives and negatives to this. It just depends on the type of gamer that you are.

Our first adventure is, “An Amaranthine Desire,” which can be described as “The Crucible meets Groundhog Day.” It’s an interesting adventure that involves characters going back in time from the Gaslight to 1283. Players will find themselves in a familiar city-at least in name only- trying to end a time loop that has them repeat the same day over and over again. Unlike Groundhog Day though, the time loop is slowly eating away at the characters, causing them to rapidly age, so the characters are on a definite timeline here to solve the mystery or dissipate into the ether. It’s an odd adventure where characters won’t die by conventional means, but it is all too easy for characters to simply cease to exist because the solution isn’t that obvious to those that play things out. There are a very limited amount of “nights” to complete the adventure, so more often than not, the adventure will just kind of…end unless the Keeper is very hand holding. Even if characters do achieve their mission, they can still cease to exist as they escape the time warp and the eventual ending of the adventure is very unsatisfactory to me as it involves some more time travel shenanigans that just didn’t do it for me.

That’s not to say the adventure is a bad one. Far from it. It’s just unforgiving and drops the ball with the possible endings. I love the rest of the adventure. The characters are very interesting, the mystery is fantastic, the setting and time period are something I wish we’d see more of in Call of Cthulhu and most of all, it involves the lost crown of Saxony. Long time Diehard GameFAN readers are probably familiar with a video game entitled The Lost Crown which is perhaps the best modernization of the three crowns legend. I reviewed the original release back in 2008 and Aaron Sirois reviewed the HD remake in 2014. Both versions of the game won awards from us in the years they came out and I was overjoyed to see the crown finally show up in an official Call of Cthulhu adventure. The adventure details the history of the actual real world crown nicely. Sure only the Keeper gets to enjoy the folklore bits behind the inspiration for the adventure, but I love when they put that stuff in here. After all, more adventures are read rather than played. Overall, “An Amaranthine Desire” is an interesting adventure. Keepers will more than likely tweak rather than play it as is, but the core of the adventure is a really nice, outside the box piece that I enjoyed for what it is.

“A Message of Art” is the second adventure in the collection and it takes place in Victorian Paris. The adventure bills itself as a sandbox piece, but it is anything but. The jargon “sandbox” refers to an adventure this is wide open where the player(s) can do whatever and whatever they want to the point of completely ignoring the core story hook and instead choose to do any number of side quests without time limits or worries about how said jaunts will affect the core story. I’m always disturbed when I see adventures thrown out the terminology without actually using it properly. It’s how you know they’re just trying buzzwords like “proactive” in the 90s. It’s a red flag that something is going to suck. In truth, “A Message of Art” is perhaps the most on-rails adventure in the collection. Even more so than the previous adventure, you have a very strict timeline characters will have to follow or they will simply die. There is very little to no room for deviation because so much of the adventure involves you have to follow the timeline exactly. In many ways, “A Message of Art” is more the tabletop equivalent of a visual novel because while entertaining, you’re more or less along for the ride with the Keeper having to control nearly everything for this adventure to work properly. It’s by far the weakest (and my least favorite adventure) in the collection and if you want an actual sandbox piece for Call of Cthulhu, might I suggest The Sense of Sleight of Hand Man.

Again though, this doesn’t mean the adventure is all bad. I utterly love the premise behind this piece, which is that art in all forms is actually an alien sentient virus of sorts. It’s an intriguing concept as is the core antagonist in this piece. It’s just too bad the seeds of inspiration germinate so quickly in this adventure. Had it been weeks, months or even years, this adventure would have a lot more potential and could even have a full campaign wrapped around the idea. Instead everything is just too rushed to really have the effect the concept should have. To make this enjoyable, a Keeper is really going to have to put some time in and rewrite huge parts of this adventure from the ground up.

Adventure number three is “And Some Fell on Stony Ground.” It takes place in small town North America during the 1920s. It can be in any state really. It’s a hard adventure to explain without giving up complete spoilers, but I’ll try. The Investigators are run of the mill townfolk who just happen to be unlucky enough to live in a town slowly dividing in two. Now, I know since it’s the 1920s, you might think the divide is racial or political, but it’s between two very different groups – The Blessed and the Broken. The Investigators are not members of either group, but can end up in one or the other as the adventure progresses. The first half of the adventure has players trying to figure out the mystery of the town and why people are changing in personality. The second half is a survival horror romp akin to Resident Evil (4 or 5, not 1-3) where players are trying to get out of town or be brutally murdered. It’s a really fun adventure and the fact the two halves play so differently but come together so seamlessly, I can assure you that the piece is a fantastic one. Whether your players prefer talking head adventures or combat oriented affairs, this adventure has something for everyone. I really enjoyed it, although there is a chance for PvP to come about, so if you have gamers that are drastically opposed to competitive instead of co-operative tabletop gaming, you might want to avoid this one simply for that reason.

“Bleak Prospect” takes place in the days of the Great Depression. My favorite monograph from Chaosium, is Children of the Storm, which takes place during this era and “Bleak Prospect” can actually be fit with that set of adventures nicely. Characters will be residents of a shantytown/Hooverville in Massachusetts as winter is about to come rolling in. New England winters are horrible enough if you have a secure warm home, yet there is something even scarier awaiting the downtrodden. A strange disease and faceless men are rumored to be spreading through the shantytown. Children are missing, the remaining wealthy of the town seem to actively oppress the have-nots and yet all of this pales compared to what else awaits the Investigators who just want a nice meal and a warm bed. I should also add that “Bleak Prospect” is a quasi-sequel to “From Beyond” (the story, not the movie), by HP Lovecraft and it’s a wonderful homage to the original. Unless you read the adventure or have “From Beyond” memorized, you probably won’t notice the subtle hints in the piece.

I really enjoyed “Bleak Prospect” as it’s super creepy on multiple levels and I haven’t even talked about the freakiest part of the adventure. Alas, I can’t because of spoilers, but rest assured, this is my favorite adventure in the collection.

The penultimate adventure is “The Moonchild.” It takes place in modern times and revolves around a group of men and women in their 40s whose collegiate hijinx in an occult club of sorts comes back to haunt them. Whoops. The story is a new twist on things like The Omen, Lucius, Rosemary’s Baby and the like. It’s also interesting to see that the Investigators are pretty much completely to blame for everything that happens in this adventure, even if the mistake was made during a drunken sex orgy in their college years. Having a cast of middle-aged screw ups is a very different atmosphere than the usual Investigators you find in Call of Cthulhu. There are no Dilettantes, private investigators, Miskatonic professors or the like to be had. Drug addicts, child abusers and more make up the main characters and friends in this adventure. Although it is set in modern times, it feels more like a 1970s horror film in tone and characters. I’m not sure if that is intentional or not, but it’s a nice change of pace. The adventure also does give a trigger warning because there are subjects like child abuse, possible incest/molestation, and sex with a minor going on (although with the latter the adventure tells you to make the younger of the pair juuuuust old enough to be legal). I appreciate whenever an adventure provides trigger warnings to its audience although in this case, I think people who are usually squicked out by stuff involving minors will be okay here. It’s not like five year olds are being sodomized and beheaded.

“Moonchild” is an interesting look at what is real and what isn’t and also makes for a nice juxtaposition between Lovecraftian style magick and the version of occult magic people have picked up from horror movies, Simon’s the Necronomicon and Anton LeVay. In many ways, “Moonchild” doesn’t feel like a Call of Cthulhu at all, which helps to make it stand out from the pack. It could easily be ported to other horror games like Chill, Cryptworld and even something by White Wolf/Onyx Path. In fact, a White Wolf World of Darkness is an apt comparison for this adventure as it contains little to no violence and/or detective work. Much of the adventure is purely social interaction amongst old friends. If you’re looking for a good adventure to convert to Cthulhu Live!, this would be an excellent choice.

All in all, “The Moonchild” is very different from most CoC adventures, but that’s the point of Nameless Horrors. I quite liked it for what it was, even though I recognize the style and atmosphere might be TOO different for people that want only Lovecraftian adventures. Still, I loved how this piece took old horror movie themes and turned them into something fresh, new and fun.

Our last adventure in Nameless Horrors is “The Space Between” and it takes place in modern day LA. On the surface it feels like a dark satire of Scientology and its hold over some bad Hollywood movies, but it is more than that. In many ways this adventure feels like, “What if a mythos cult had the Hollywood ties Scientology has?” Instead of a play like The King in Yellow, they instead have a movie – In the Mouth of Madness style. Well, they’re TRYING to have a movie anyway. The cast and crew are members of the religion, the Script is based on its principal scripture and even the investigators are members of the religion, known as The Church of Sunyata. With everyone being of a similar background, you would think production would run smoothly. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Instead, things are going wrong. Chief amongst the problems? The female lead has gone missing. Oops. It’s up to the players to figure out what is going on while also protecting their religion from scandal.

This is a fun little adventure for many reasons. The first is the obvious parody of Hollywood culture. The second is that technically the investigators are the bad guys, even if they are unwittingly so. After all, they’re members of the cul…church. The third is that at, some point, some, if not all, of the investigators, will stop being human and become…something else. It’s fun to play as a fiendish thingie from time to time especially in a piece like this. Finally, the potential for playing this piece as a bit of comedy-horror is there. It just depends on the personalities of those playing it. Whether you play it straight or as a farce, the adventure is still a lot of fun and well worth experiencing.

Overall, I really enjoyed Nameless Horrors. Out of the six adventures, there were four I really liked, one I liked but felt needed a little bit of work and one I like the concept of, but not the follow through. Obviously, these are just my opinions and how much you enjoy Nameless Terrors will really depend on how much you NEED actual Lovecraftian monsters and themes in your Call of Cthulhu adventures. As I play a lot of different games and grow tired of tropes/stereotypes quickly, this was a nice breath of fresh air and really did what I had hoped Bumps in the Night would accomplish several years ago. With only a $14.97 price tag, you’re paying about $2.50 an adventure, which is a fantastic deal, no matter how you slice it. For those looking for something outside the box instead of the usual Mythos rigmarole, definitely consider picking up Nameless Horrors. It should sate you until the rest of Horror on the Orient Express or CoC 7e finally gets here. I hope.

Monsters Macabre is the first supplement for Cryptworld, the spiritual successor to the first and second editions of Chill. This is not to be confused with the actual Chill, Third Edition which has the legal rights to the game’s name, but none of soul from the previous Pacesetter and/or Mayfair versions. My strong advice would be to forgo Chill 3e and instead purchase Cryptworld. it’s closer to the original spirit of the game, has better art, and costs less money. You can read my review of the Cryptworld core rulebook here. That way, we can get more supplements like Monsters Macabre, which was a mild success on Kickstarter that deserved more attention AND more money.

Monsters Macabre is essentially the game’s Monster Manual. There are seventy-one monsters to be found in the pages of this supplement, which should keep you busy for a while. Some of these are classic monsters like Banshees, Minotaurs, Gargoyles, Mothman, Liches and Mad Scientists. These are things you would normally expect to find as antagonists in a RPG, be it fantasy or modern horror. Then there are some that are less unexpected but fit the theme of Cryptworld perfectly. These are creatures like the Plague Bat which a giant bat that well… eats people and spreads virulent diseases. I’d also include things like the Headless Huntsman, Incan Mummies, La Llorona and the Vapour From Space into that category. Then you have the really weird things that even veteran gamers might not see coming. These are the creatures that are just so weird and unexpected that they are perfect to throw into a game because how the heck can you prepare for a monster like the Batsquatch, Mongolian Death Worm, Murdermobile or the Creeping Eye? As long as you can craft an adventure where these creatures make sense, you’re sure to knock both the players and their characters for a loop when they finally encounter them.

Every creature in Monsters Macabre is well done. There is a nice balance between background text and stat block, so you get a real sense of how to run one of these monsters and how difficult a time the PCs will have in dispatching them. Obviously no GM will use everything creature in Monsters Macabre, but anyone who is even remotely interested in Cryptworld will want to grab this supplement as it really adds to the overall feel of the game. Plus, less work for the GM who previously had to design his or her own monsters outside of the few in the core rulebook.

There is more to Monsters Macabre than just stat blocks for monsters though. There are five other sections of the book to consider. “It’s Alive!” talks about how to build your own things for Cryptworld. It’s some advice on designs stats, background information and how much experience to dole out once the thing has been dispatched. Meanwhile “Play Things” gives you advice on having monsters as PCs. Of course, Cryptworld is designed to be humans facing evil monsters, but this section gives you ways to work around that. Here you can get a feel for how the game would play if the PCs are sympathetic monsters or if they are playing irredeemably evil horrors as the regular version of Cryptworld supposes. Either way can be a lot of fun if you have the right mix of players and GM. There are also steps for creating a monster PC including the way that they will earn and spend XP. For those of you who like a lot of mechanics and rules – you’ll find a lot here in regards to monster PCs. What to do when there are witnesses to the creature, mundane reaction tables, what to do when a monster is outed to the general public and more. It’s all stuff I personally won’t use as I’ll keep monster PCs to World of Darkness games, but what’s here is really well thought out and written. There’s some good stuff here and it will really change the dynamic of your Cryptworld game.

Section Five is “Random Organizations. This is two pages of tables that will allow you to roll up that are helping, hunting or harming monsters. Section Six is “Tangled Threads” This is a full adventure for Crypt Masters (I wish it was Cryptkeepers) to run for players. It’s a quick one-shot adventure where the PCs must investigate a spooky house that seems connected to four disappearances in small-town Pennsylvania. Of course, this being Cryptworld, there is something not quite natural at the root of the problem.

Monsters Macabre is an excellent supplement and should make most Cryptworld fans very happy. I’m very happy with what is here and I know I more than got my money’s worth out of this release. Here’s hoping we don’t go another two years before we get the next Cryptworld release though.

I’m not really a big fan of the Underdark or Drow, so I’ve been sitting out a lot of the recent Dungeons & Dragons products and encounters. I was more than happy to review Into the Unknown, however, as I haven’t had the opportunity since Heroes of the Elemental Chaos. I also loved the idea of a Dungeon Survival Handbook. In my mind, it brought me back to the days of First Edition and both the Wilderness and Outdoor Survival Handbooks. I’m surprised they haven’t done a book like this before, and after reading it, I’m hoping this becomes a book for D&D Next as well. Lately, the things I’ve seen come out for Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, Labyrinth Lord and other D&D derivatives have been about big deep dungeons with little to no story. It’s as if all people for those lines wants is one big long hack and slash experience. That’s not what I want from a tabletop game – that’s what I get from video games. I want a thematically interesting dungeon. Why is the dungeon there? What purpose does it serve? Why am I going into this dank dark pit in the first place? Well, apparently I’m not in the minority, because the entirety of Into the Unknown is about making a memorable dungeon that is all about Role-Playing rather than roll-playing.

The book is divided into three chapters and two appendices. Let’s take a look at each one and see what makes a book a must buy for any 4e fan.

Chapter 1: Dungeon Delvers

This chapter highlights seven new Character Themes, three new playable character races and then wraps up with nearly twenty pages of new powers for various classes, skills and themes. Wizards of the Coast has gone all out here, and this chapter is the one that players and DMs alike will want to read through.

The new character themes are Bloodsworn, Deep Delver, Escaped Thrall, Trapsmith, Treasure Hunter, Underdark Envoy and Underdark Outcast. Remember that Themes do not replace core concepts like race and character class. Instead, a theme is just added onto the overall character, and lets you have a few new options for powers as you level up. Bloodsworn reminds me a lot of the old “favored enemy” aspect of the Ranger, although you don’t actually get bonuses against one specific race. Instead, attacks are just more likely to hit, and when they do, they are accompanied by more damage. A Deep Delver is specifically someone who goes dungeon diving. This class really gets the most benefit out of a high Dungeoneering skill, as you can re-roll missed checks, and even use it instead of a few other skill rolls instead. An Escaped Thrall is just what you think: Someone who once worked for a mind flayer or something other aberration and managed to break free of its control. Choosing this theme lets you have an emo background, along with some nice psychic bonuses. Definitely consider tying this theme into a psion. A Trapsmith is an expert at building and dismantling traps. In-game, this nets you special benefits towards resisting traps and even inflicting some on attacking enemies. A Treasure Hunter is self explanatory. The core bonuses with this theme aren’t combat related at all, which surprised me, as I thought they would be things like faster movement in a room with obvious treasure or a free action of taking items in addition to move and attack. Instead, it’s a free Skill Focus or bonuses checks related to ONE specific item at a time. Treasure Hunter is definitely the weakest of the new themes. Underdark Envoy is all about political intrigue. With this Theme, you get bonuses to things like Streetwise, Bluff and diplomacy. It’s a neat choice for the talker in your group. Finally, we have the Underdark Outcast. This is basically a person who is cast out from his original home, village, clan or whatever and is forced to take up residence in the Underdark. The powers here are more than a little odd, as the first one nets you a bonus to attacks when you are all alone from allies. That can come in handy at times, but we all know the “Don’t Split the Party” rule. At later levels, you get bonuses to healing, Endurance and Dungeoneering checks.

All in all, five of the seven new themes are pretty good. Treasure Hunter is pretty much crap and Trapsmith is cute but not very useful compared to the others. Underdark Enovy and Dungeon Delver are my favorites in terms of what you get as Utility and Optional Powers, but remember that the theme you choose also is a big part of your character’s past, so go for what fits the story you want to tell rather than power-gaming.

The three new character races listed in Chapter One are goblin, kobold and Svirfneblin (Deep Gnome). I was very intrigued by the Deep Gnome because you rarely see that as a PC race. I think I’ve only seen it in The Book of Humanoids and 3Es Forgotten Realms handbook. I’m more shocked that it took until now to get stats, powers and the like for a PC goblin and/or kobold. That seems like something that should have happened towards the start of 4e, not the tail end of it. Well, better late than never. Goblins basically get a lot of dirty fighting attacks, some of which even cause fellow PCs to take damage for them! Kobold Utility Powers are all about movement and grid management. Deep Gnome racial powers are all over the place, from temporary hit points and camouflage to outright turning invisible and summoning earth elementals! Wow. The Deep Gnome is definitely overpowered, but also pretty awesome.

The last twenty pages of Chapter One contain forty different powers for previous classes. I wish they were organized by class, skill or something other than theme because players and DMs will have to flip repeatedly through these pages to find what they are looking for. It’s just not very organized.

Chapter 2: Strive to Survive

Chapter Two is all about helping the DM craft a memorable dungeon-based experience. PCs can get use out of some sections, but really it’s all about setting the mood and setting up a dungeon for play. There aren’t any stats or rules in Chapter Two to speak of, but it’s all very heavy on substance. Think of it as a collection of essays from industry vets on how to make and play a dungeon that your players will talk about long after they have finished (or died in) the adventure. A lot of this chapter might feel like fluff or like it doesn’t cover the topic contained therein too deeply, and that’s a valid opinion. After reading it a few times, I believe it was written this way to get you interested in purchasing other books on the topic. After all, if the bit on Beholders interests you, there’s always a Monster Manual or three you can buy that goes into more depth about these aberrations.

The chapter starts off with the “Five Rules of Dungeon Delving.” These rules actually apply to any tabletop RPG. They are: Don’t split the party, map everything, gear up, track in-game time & know when to turn back. These are as applicable in something like Shadowrun or Call of Cthulhu as they are ion Dungeons & Dragons.

Expert Delving Tactics covers the basics of dungeon exploring. You might think this is all common sense, but remember: Common sense isn’t all that common. This section talks about dealing with natural darkness, finding secret doors, remembering to stop for rest and food, and the importance of stealth in a never before explored location o’ doom. I also really enjoyed how the chapter picked apart some of the stupider ploys PCs will try to get through a dungeon safely, like bring a herd of animals in to set off traps and the like.

Dungeon Types just gives you a long list of various dungeons and what the inherent dangers and rewards of each are. After all, a crypt will be a very different experience from a ruined castle that phases between two different planes of reality which in turn will be different still from an underground labyrinth. This is ten pages of pure information to help your imagination soar as you design the perfect test of your PCs skill and strength.

Dungeon Denizens is simply a brief rundown of monsters that tend to live in dungeons, especially underground ones. You’ve got aboleths, carrion crawlers, hook horrors, mind flayers, various oozes, purple worms, rust monsters, stirges, umber hulks and more here. Each monster gets between one and three paragraphs of description. It’s not much, but this is meant to help a DM realize what creatures should go where. Nothing more and nothing less.

Infamous Dungeons is my favorite section of the entire book. Not only does it discuss the eight most memorable dungeons from all corners of the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse, but it gives you their history and evolution from old school basic D&D to modern day play. You’re getting a taste of how the story for each starts, but then the book encourages you to either go out and get the old adventures, or take the plot hook and make your own adventures with them. I have to admit, when I turned to this section and saw the old school First Edition art from Ravenloft, my heart skipped a beat. So wonderful. What are the dungeons included in this book? Well in order you have: Castle Ravenloft, the Ghost Tower of Inverness, The Lost City, The Pyramid of Amun-Re, White Plume Mountain, The Tomb of Horrors, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and The Gates of Firestorm Peak. Wow. It was so much fun to read about each of these and how they have changed from their original incarnation to their last remake (if there have been any). It’s no surprise, with D&D Next being more a throwback to first and second edition AD&D, that Wizards felt like giving a little history lesson here.

Chapter Two concludes with a section entitled Dungeoneers’ Tools, which contains a list of all the important items to take with you in a dungeon, along with some new items for use in your game. All in all, this is a pretty good chapter, and although there isn’t a lot of in-game information here, this chapter is fertile ground for any DM worth their salt.

Chapter 3: Master of the Dungeon

Chapter Three is comprised of four sections: Involving the Characters, Creating an Underdark Adventure, Dungeon Makers and Special Rewards. All of these are exactly what they sound like, but it’s worth taking a quick look at each of them.

Involving the Characters reinforces the themes of the book – that a truly great dungeon needs a truly great story to go with it. Otherwise it won’t be memorable or stand the test of time. This section helps you hook character themes to the story and how to make sure characters have choices instead of just going from room to room in a linear fashion. I also liked the two pages devoted towards how to make interesting puzzles/mysteries for PCs to solve rather than obscure crap that only makes sense to the one who created them. As a long time point and click PC adventure game fan, this section felt like it was plucked directly out of that gaming genre. It was also great to see the book talk about how to get around puzzles PCs can’t solve rather than saying, “Well, adventure’s over.”

Creating an Underdark Adventure is similar to the previous section, but it is specifically tailored to, well… playing in the Underdark. As I’m not a fan of the setting, nothing here interested me personally, but it was well-written and should be of help to DMs that really love to use the Drow. It contains ideas for stories, skill challenges, issues with light sources and more.

Dungeon Makers is a ten page section on the races or groups that might make a dungeon and why they do it. I loved that they devoted a piece to minotaurs, as they usually get overlooked. They also threw in Yuan-Ti and Kou-Toa, which I thought was a nice touch, as well as outside the box. The other races are the usual fare: Drow, Dwarves, Duegar, insane cults and wizards looking for a place to research or hold weird experiments.

The final section in Chapter Three is Special Rewards. It is divided into two topics. The first are rare but powerful scrolls like Mass Heal and Wish. I think this is the first appearance of Wish in 4e, and it’s interesting to see it here. The other topic is about dungeon companions, where you gain a special ally to serve/work/ally with your character. A few examples are given, but perhaps the most famous is Meepo, a kobold that gained particular prominence in 3e.

Appendix 1: Build Your Own Dungeon

This is just four pages on tips and tricks to help you figure out what you want out of a homebrew dungeon. It’s exceptionally informative, but perhaps the best part is that half page sidebar to close things out by the late, great Gary Gygax. In those two paragraphs he puts the art of combining a story with a dungeon crawl better than nearly everyone before or after him. I can’t think of a better way to end this section.

Appendix 2: Random Dungeons

Okay, this is pretty cool. The last five pages of the book are devoted to a random dungeon generator> I loved all the tables here. Not only did it remind me of old school First Edition AD&D where there was a table for everything, it really explains how to use a random generator rather than just simply rolling as an equivalent to throwing crap at a wall and seeing what sticks. This should be a lot of help to younger or less experienced DMs or anyone that prefers to use premade adventures and has never really tried to create their own. Using this won’t be the most amazing dungeon crawl ever devised, but it will help you take those first steps into adventure design.

All in all, I’m very happy with this book. Even if 4e isn’t your D&D edition of choice, there’s a lot of great ideas in this book that can be used by any DM. It’s very friendly to any fantasy RPG of choice (save for the specific game mechanics in the first chapter). If you’re a 4e fan, you’ll definitely want to consider picking up this book for the sheer wealth of ideas it contains. Even if you’re not using Fourth Edition, flip through Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook; you might just like what you see.

Legacy of the Crystal Shard is the second Sundering adventure which helps take the world’s oldest role-playing game franchise from Fourth Edition into D&D Next, which is Fifth Edition. Besides the first Sundering adventure, Murder in Baldur’s Gate, there has been three novels based on the event (with three more to come). If you’re interested they are The Companions by R.A. Salvatore, The Godborn by Paul Kemp and The Adversary by Erin Evans. Click on through to read my reviews of each one if you are interested.

Like Murder in Baldur’s Gate, Legacy of the Crystal Shard is far more than a mere adventure that you open up and play with your friends. Rather it’s a huge collection of pieces that really helps to justify the MSRP of the collection. You get a thirty-one page adventure, a sixty-three page campaign guide to Icewind Dale and a nice DM screen. All of this is wrapped in an EXTREMELY FLIMSY slipcover that is guaranteed to be ripped, lost or outright destroyed sooner rather than later due to how thin it is. The slipcover is nice and glossy with some gorgeous artwork, but Wizards really should have sprang for better materials on this, especially since this is the piece that holds everything together. Murder in Baldur’s Gate had the same problem though, so it appears this is a trend Wizards is hellbent on continuing despite my (and practically everyone else’s) complaints about the slipcover. The good news is that the slipcover is really the only bad thing about the collection as much like the first Sundering adventure, Wizards has put together a pretty impressive and high quality package, making Legacy of the Crystal Shard one of their best releases in many years.

First up – let’s look at the DM Screen. This thing is a work of art. Usually I think DM screens are silly, but the ones for The Sundering have really impressed me. In this package you get a four panel screen made out of very glossy and thick paper. This is the material I wish the slipcover was made out of instead of the tissue-like substance they actually used. The front of the cover (which players can see) contains three different maps. The center two panels make up one giant map of ten towns. It’s a very simple, rudimentary map, but then again, Ten Towns is a very simple, rudimentary locale with very little terrain, roads or distinguishing features (except for snow and ice of course). The other two panels contain a more in-depth look of one city and then a smaller look at the tinier towns in the community. The right panel (from DM’s point of view) highlights Bryn Shader and then touches on Bremen, Targos, Termalaine and Lonelywood while the left side focuses on Easthaven and has tiny supplemental maps of Dougan’s Tale, Good Mead, Caer-Dineval and Caer-Konig. On the inside of the screen is a map of all of Icewind Dale, along with some names (and corresponding pictures) of the big NPCs from the adventure part of the package. One panel is devoted to nothing but random encounter charts. There are eight different charts – each one for a different locations around Icewind Dale. The third panel contains a chart of how long it gets from one location to another. These are very helpful in fleshing out the area and will get a lot of use in the time based adventure piece of the collection. Finally we have some more tables on the fourth panel which range from name generators for Ten Town inhabitants to surprising weather conditions. All in all, this is one of the finer DM screens I’ve seen material wise and every bit of it is of use to players and the DM alike when running an Icewind Dale based campaign.

Like the first Sundering adventure, the best part of Legacy of the Crystal Shard is by far the campaign guide. These campaign guides have been some of the best offering from Wizards in the past two editions and they are by far the most comprehensive pieces in the history of Dungeons & Dragons for the locations they cover. The campaign book is sixty-three pages and every page is just amazing content that a DM from any edition can really make use of. Sure the adventure is set in the time period between fourth and fifth edition, but the information goes all the way back to the origins of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, so even first and second edition AD&D fans will be able to get their money’s worth out of just this piece alone. In addition to copious amounts of information on Ten-Towns, there is a synopsis of The Crystal Shard which was the first Drizzt novel (writing-wise, not chronologically) and a look at many movers and shakers outside of the towns. The barbarian tribes, local dwarf communities, the Arcane Brotherhood and other groups are highlighted in detail here. There is so much content in the campaign book, that you could easily create well over a dozen homebrew adventures for the region without touching the actual adventure packet in this collection. It is worth nothing that unlike Murder in Baldur’s Gate which really focused on the old Second Edition AD&D video games about the region, this campaign guide to Icewind Dale doesn’t bring up any of the either of the two video games that bear the same name. It’s a shame as with the renewed emphasis on demons and devils in 4e and Next, Belhifet would have been a find choice to rear his head somewhere in this collection. If you’re a fan of the Icewind Dale region at all, you’re going to want to pick up Legacy of the Crystal Shard for the campaign guide alone. It’s truly magnificent and I can’t say enough good words about this piece. Trust me when I say the best Campaign Setting award for 2013 will either be going to this or Murder in Baldur’s Gate.

Finally, let’s talk the adventure collection. I know the package says adventure on the cover and in the description, but it’s actually a full campaign, similar to how Murder in Baldur’s Gate was actually comprised of ten adventures. It will take you roughly a dozen sessions to play out Legacy of the Crystal Shard to its end, and even then you may have some dangling plot threads or new potential stories that spring off this collection. The adventure book itself is system neutral meaning it has no stats or mechanics of any kind within it. If you go online to the Sundering website you can find monster stats for 3.5, Fourth and Next versions of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s buried a bit so instead of making you dig through the site for the downloads, just go here. Like Murder in Baldur’s Gate I’m surprised and disappointed that Second Edition AD&D stats aren’t included as well especially as both adventures rely most heavily of seminal and iconic events that took place (and used) that system. Ah well, as the adventure is system neutral, you can easily adapt Legacy of the Crystal Shard to either version of AD&D or even OD&D. Hell, you can adapt it to an entirely different system to if you want, ranging from 13th Age to Dungeon Crawl Classics. It’s the beauty of not having stats in this piece.

The actual adventure is a three-pronged affair. There are three different major antagonists, each with their own vile plan for Icewind Dale and the communities that make up Ten-Towns. The Arcane Brotherhood plans to conquer the region through political means. The Chosen of Auril plans to decimate the region and increase the power (and worship) of her Goddess and an ancient evil well known to long time fans of Icewind Dale rears its head once more – this time as one of the undead. Players will have to try and take care of the schemes and best they can in the ensuing chaos that envelopes the region. The adventure is an open world one, meaning players can more or less take care of things in the order they want, but that in doing so, repercussions are felt. Players will really only have time to deal with two of the three threats to Icewind Dale, meaning one big bad gets to see their schemes come to fruition. Of course players, don’t know this and as a result, one faction is far more powerful when they finally face it, which not only helps to make the player choices feel all the more important but also means the adventure gets more challenging no matter how they choose to let things unfold. Now Legacy of the Crystal Shard isn’t completely open world. There is a set beginning and ending much like most adventures, but as the vast majority of the campaign can unfold six different ways when played six different times, this means a DM can really get their use out of the collection. Maybe one team will seek to deal with the Ice Witch first and foremost while the a less combat oriented party ends up tackling the more political/subterfuge based plotlines first. There is no right or wrong here and the end result is a really great adventure that fans of D&D will remember for a long time to come. In fact the only downside to the adventure is that it is supposedly designed for Levels 1-3, but last I check Icingdeath was NOT something you wanted to face when you are just starting out. You might want to bump the adventure up a few levels, especially if you plan to play this before or after Murder in Baldur’s Gate.

Overall, Legacy of the Crystal Shard is an amazing collection that is sure to make any D&D fan happy – regardless of what edition they love best. The adventure packet is long enough to keep your party busy for weeks or even months (depending on how often you get together) and it can easily be adapted to whichever version of the game you want. You’ll have to go online to get monster stats for 3.5, 4e or Next but that’s not really that big of a deal. Now in a few years if you need to redownload things and Wizards of the Coast no longer has them available – THEN you have a problem. The campaign guide and the DM screen are the two best pieces of this collection and the campaign guide alone is worth the asking price for this set. You can get the entire collection on Amazon for only twenty bucks right now, which is an incredible deal that I heartily recommend to anyone even remotely interested in the Suffering Icewind Dale or D&D Next. Sure the slipcover is tissue paper thin and will be shredded by you sooner rather than later, but everything else about this collection is simply fantastic. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this high on D&D branded releases, but so far the Sundering adventure collections are amongst the best releases of 2013, regardless of tabletop branding. Pick this up today and see why firsthand.

Most Kickstarters run for thirty days. Troll Lord Games however decided to run a very short campaign (only 17 days) for The Lost City of Gaxmoor. It worked out for them though, garnering 446 backers (the second most out of their ten campaigns) and netting nearly $22,000 – far more than the $4.500 they originally sought. What helped make Gaxmoor such a success considering it had such a short campaign life? Well, three things. The first is that simply put Castles & Crusades is awesome. You can check out the many reviews I’ve done of products for the game (most of them are positive) here. The second reason why this was a success is because The Lost City of Gaxmoor is actually a remake from when Troll Lord games published d20 products instead of using their own Siege Engine system. The third and final reason might be the biggest draw for many gamers. The writers of Gaxmoor are none other than Ernest Gary Gygax Jr. & Luke Gygax. If you don’t know who they are (or their father) than I guess this is your first time being exposed to the tabletop side of RPGs (perhaps you visit Diehard GameFAN for our video game coverage?) and you’ve picked a great piece to start you on your journey into pen and paper gaming.

As mentioned, Gaxmoor started out life around 2002 as a d20 product published by Troll Lord Games. You do not have to have experience with the original to enjoy this. The Castles & Crusades version is not a sequel, prequel or follow-up. It is its own beast. If you want to purchase the original, you can find it on Ebay or Amazon.com for under ten dollars. C&C is flexible enough that you can interchange it with d20 pretty easily, but it is closer to AD&D 1e/2e in feel. So even if you are beholden only to Pathfinder, you can still pick up the new version and use it with your game pretty easily.

The Lost City of Gaxmoor is both a setting and a campaign. The original d20 version was designed to take characters from Levels 1-10 over many play sessions. With the Castles & Crusades version, we have more of a city guide filled with specific encounters and plot hooks rather than one overarching adventure that you have to follow. In this regard Gaxmoor is more like a sandbox video game RPG akin to Skyrim or Fallout where you end up spending more time exploring and getting sidetracked by side-quests rather than being railroading on to a singular linear plot. This makes DM’ing The Lost City of Gaxmoor more work than the average published adventure, but it also means it can be a lot more memorable for the players. So Gaxmoor isn’t a piece I’d give someone new to running a tabletop game, but it’s a great choice for someone to first play as they won’t feel “on rails” and they’ll encounter a wide range of antagonists and NPCs while learning the mechanics of a game. You have a set story hook and four encounters before hitting the city, but after that – everything is wide open.

I should also add that unlike the original version of Gaxmoor which laid out the levels characters should start at and advance to by the time things are ended, the new C&C version does not. Encounter strength varies wildly, which can lead to a total party kill, but it should also teach the team to be cautious and not rush in, weapons a’ swingin’. I mean the second encounter in the game (and it’s fixed) it up against an Ogre-Ghoul! You usually don’t see 4d8 HD creatures as an early encounter in an adventure made for Level 1 characters. So expect a lot of PC death as your party combs Gaxmoor. This is balanced out nicely though as Gaxmoor has many places for new characters to pop in and join the party. I love how this was done and it prevents a player from sitting around twiddling his or her thumbs waiting to get back in the game.

The plot revolves around the city of Gaxmoor suddenly re-appearing in our dimension. It has been gone so long that most humanoids forgot it ever existed. Your party is chosen to help investigate the location and see who (or what) dwells within the walled city. There are over a dozen factions within Gaxmoor to suss out, wipe out or ally with. Even though much of your time will be spent in the confines of a single city, make no mistake, this will be a full length campaign and then some. The adventure requires as much detective work and verbal solutions as it does the hacking and slashing of foul beasties, which means there is something for every gamer with this piece. Remember this is an extremely open ended adventure/campaign, so there is no actual ending or sorts. It’s a very non-linear piece and it’s up to the Castle Keeper and the players to decide when and how the adventure ends. In addition to the campaign itself, you’ll also get a history of Gaxmoor overview, seven new monsters, fourteen new magic items and many, MANY maps. So players and Keepers alike will be able to take more than just the experience and memories of The Lost City of Gaxmoor with them.

The Lost City of Gaxmoor is a wonderful homage to the old school days of roleplaying. The Gygax brothers more than live up to the family name with this piece, giving you a campaign that will last you for a very long time and provide you with many subquests, dungeons to explore, allies to make, and monsters to slaughter. You can play through the campaign several times and discover new things, or even entire sections that you might have missed previously. You will definitely get your money’s worth with The Lost City of Gaxmoor and if you have yet to experience Castles & Crusades, then this might be the best way to get started. As soon as The Lost City of Gaxmoor becomes publicly available, order this from Troll Lord Games and/or DriveThruRPG.com. Even better, while you are waiting for this campaign to come out, you can pick up the Castles & Crusades starter pack giving you the Player’s Handbook, Monsters & Treasure a set of character sheets and three adventures. I know I sound like a shill, but it’s a great deal and I do think most fans of old school or fantasy RPGs will love Castles & Crusades when they give it a try.

There are lots of iconic characters in Dungeons and Dragons. Drizzt and Eliminster are legends from the Forgotten Realms. And anyone that ever stepped into the Demiplane of Dread, will never forget the name Strahd. But before there was a Ravenloft and a Forgotten Realms, and heck before there even was a Dungeons and Dragons, there was Greyhawk. And probably the most important character from Greyhawk was Mordenkainen, because you see Mordenkainen was Gary Gygax’s player character. So when Gary played the game that would become Dungeons and Dragons, he played as Mordenkainen the wizard. Over the course of time, Mordenkainen became a powerful wizard that kept the peace in Greyhawk. He maintained the balance between good and evil. He also obtained and cataloged the many fantastical magical items he came across in his travels. And this compendium of magical items is contained in Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium.

At first glance you may assume Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium will be a book of nothing but magic items for your game. If you thought this you are wrong. It’s more than just magic items. It’s more of a book of anything your character may want to buy. You’ll find a wide assortment of magic items, standard adventuring gear, and hirelings and henchman. You’re also given the cost of buildings as well. What better way to help part your players from their gold than some real estate speculation. There is wide variety of items, with something for every class. So let’s delve a little deeper and see exactly what we will find in the emporium.

First you are greeted with an introduction by Mordenkainen. He also introduces every subsequent chapter. This adds some nice flavor to the book, which is very flavorful in general. In this book you will not find a generic +1 sword. Every magic item has a description with a little backstory as well. The main goal of this book is to give you unique magic items to add to your game. Long time Dungeon and Dragon’s players may even recognize from of the magic items from early editions. The Helm of Brilliance returns to D&D in this book. It has a similar feel to its 1st edition counterpart but is not quite as lethal to the character if they are hit with a giant fireball. Ioun Stones are another item returning to D&D. With the Ioun Stones you lose some of the variety contained in the 1st Edition stones. The stones that enhance your ability scores are still present, but the stones that absorb and store spells are nowhere to be found. There are lots of items that players of previous editions will recognize, but all of them have a slight twist that prevents them from being their identical to their previous versions.

And the reason for those changes, besides the obvious rules changes, I suspect are due to a change in philosophy in Wizards of the Coast. Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium originally had a Spring 2011 release date but was pulled from their release schedule for additional playtesting. WotC is now focusing on playtesting more and making sure what is in the books work as intended. They want to minimize the online errata and offer a better playing experience straight from the book. And in a book of magic items this is appreciated. I’m sure long time player can all think of a magic item from an earlier edition that were quite game breaking when left in the hands of an ingenious players.

Something else WotC did unique to this book was make it a Game and Hobby Store exclusive. You will not be finding this book in a Barnes or Noble or being sold directly by Amazon. The only place this book is available is your friendly local game store. This doesn’t mean you cannot find a copy online since FLGSs can sell this book online. But this book is another way WotC is helping drive people to their local game store.

There are a lot magic items in the book. You have magic rings, swords, implements, armor, and other miscellaneous magic items, but there is also some content specifically for players as well. Several new armor types are introduced in this book that will be familiar to older players, such as banded mail, ring mail, splint mail among others. And with those armor types comes the appropriate armor proficiency feats. There are also new weapons and weapon feats. There are two types of weapon feats Weapon Training and Strike Specialization. The three new weapons training feats are Fail Expertise, Pick Expertise, and Polearm Expertise. Each gives you a bonus to your attack. As for Strike Specialization, there is a feat for each melee weapon group and each has a different effect depending on the chosen weapon group. Power Strike is a prerequisite for the feats so really these feats will only appeal to the melee combat heavy characters in the game. Do not think our magical characters have been forgotten about though. There is a new for them as well Superior Implement Training. This gives characters access to the superior implements in the book, which enhance the magical ability of the user by increasing their attack bonus, enhancing damage, or giving a defensive bonus among other things.

There is also additional content for DMs beyond the slew of new items to integrate in your game. DMs are introduced to artifacts. These are the items legends are made of. These are one of a kind, super powerful items that can be the focus of an adventure or campaign. It’s also best these items are in the hands of players temporarily otherwise you may find the players are powerful beyond their levels due to these items. And once again we see a two items from prior editions return one being the Codex of Infinite Planes and the other Jacinth of Inestimable Beauty. Something that I miss in the artifacts in this book that was present in prior editions is the customizability of the 1st Edition artifacts. The 1st Edition artifacts have power slots that a DM could fill in from several lists of powers. Some were good for players, some were bad for players and some were just plain annoying. This made the artifacts truly unique and no amount of player knowledge would help players when dealing with the artifacts since no two DM configure the same artifact identically.

The next thing present for DMs is something I love throwing in my games, cursed items. These are great for a group of players that insist on looting everything in the game. You have Boots of Uncontrollable Dancing, Armor of Vunerablity, and a Backbiter Spear among other things to make your player’s a little more cautious about picking up those gauntlets in the corner.

The concept of Story Items is also introduced. These are magic items that require no game mechanics and help the players overcome an obstacle. Basically you use the item, it helps you get past a specific obstacle and it’s job is done. They give an example of Jack’s beans from Jack and The Beanstalk as an example of a story item. The beans give Jack a way to the giant’s castle, with the obstacle being overcome in this example getting to the giants castle. This seems like a concept most experienced DM would already be using, but this could be good for newer players teaching them new concepts to integrate into their game. Several pages of examples of story items are given and these are worth looking through, whether you’re an old or new player, for potential story ideas for your game.

Out last chapter is our standard adventuring gear. This section is a mixture of standard items and alchemical items. The standard items focus on the concepts of kits, pre-grouped items that would be useful for a particular task or tape of character.. There’s a charlatan’s kit for the con-artist, devotee’s kit for the religious, a delver’s kit for those that go deep in the earth, a sage for the sage, and a travellers kit for well….the traveller. Each kit contains items appropriate for that type of character. Also tucked in this section you’ll find a sidebar with rules for gambling and how to use the gambling cheat items in the charlatan’s kit. So if you ever wanted to know how to run gambling in your game without slowing the game down by actually playing a game of chance, now you have your rules. The alchemy section adds another feat, Alchemist that gives a character the ability to construct alchemic items. There are several pages of alchemical items as well. There is enough variety to keep the alchemist in your group in the lab for quite some time. It’s also in this section we are told the cost of building construction. So just remember a castle with a dungeon cost 1,000,000gp before you go plopping them in your campaign willy nilly.

The final section of Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporioum is the appendixes dealing with hirelings, npcs, and henchmen, and some charts breaking down the magical items contained in this book by level and rarity. In the NPC section you will find the cost for hiring an experienced crew for your ship or a linkboy to hold your torch. It is nice for those DMs that want to know the abilities and cost of skilled NPCs the players may hire. Henchmen on the other hand are the NPC that go adventuring with the players, the rules for creating henchmen are actually contained in the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2, so all you get here is a brief description the three types of henchman and 5 sample henchmen complete with backstory for your game.

Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium is a book filled with both fluff and crunch. You have tons of stats for new magic items and new feats mixed with the backstories and descriptions of the unique magic items. I can easily recommend this book for DMs that are looking to add some flavor to the magic items in your game. There is also enough fluff that a DM should be able to walk away with many ideas for their home adventures. Now if you’re only a player, then it’s not as easily recommended. Yes there are some new feats and equipment, a majority of this book is geared towards DMs. It’s hard to recommend this book to player’s with the amount of player’s content it contains. If you’re a player that likes reading the fluff of magic items then it may be worth looking at. Really I don’t see the need to have more than one copy of this at the gaming table. But I think there definitely should be one copy of this at the gaming table.

Although Ravenloft is my favorite campaign setting from Dungeons & Dragons, the City of Neverwinter and the Sword Coast nearby it are where I’ve spent most of my D&D days. Whether it was playing in the first ever MMORPG in the early 1990s, creating adventures with the Aurora tool kit in 2002, or playing in a tabletop Forgotten Realms campaign, everything always comes back to Neverwinter. So when Wizards of the Coast decided to focus on a specific region of Toril, I wasn’t surprised Neverwinter was the chosen land (although part of me did think it might be Waterdeep). With the campaign setting hitting tomorrow, it’s time to see if Neverwinter is worth picking up, or if it’s just a supplement to the 2008 Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

First of all, Neverwinter clocks in at 223 pages with a full color glossy pages, a full fold-out map (that you do have to tear out of the book) and a very striking cover of a black dracolich squatting on the reminants of an old keep, now mostly washed away by the tide. It’s probably my favorite 4th Edition cover to date, but a good campaign setting needs more substance than style, so let’s crack the pages open.

Neverwinter consists of four chapters and an introduction. The first chapter, Jewel of the North is only about ten pages and it tries to cover the entire history of the Neverwinter region in that span. Don’t think that the book tries to flesh out every detail from first to third edition – it doesn’t. Instead it gives you a paragraph or two on twenty-one different important locations in the area, such as Neverwinter itself, Helm’s Hold, the Sword Mountains, Waterdeep and more. The chapter then completes itself with a “History of Conflict,” which gives a running timeline for the area, starting with -22,900DR up to the current year. This time line only takes up two pages, so again – there’s not a lot of detail there and longtime D&D players might be a bit miffed at the lack of history in this opening. It’s very truncated, but if you’ve been playing in the Forgotten Realms setting prior to this, you probably know most of the history by heart (or have old gaming books to fill in the blanks) and if you are new to Dungeons & Dragons with 4th Edition, you likely don’t care. Still, it would have been nice to have a more in-depth piece on what happened from the start of the Spellplague on other than a few novel series.

Chapter Two, Character Options is far meatier and it runs nearly seventy pages. The chapter can be divided into four sections: Character Themes, Racial Backgrounds, Warpriest Domains, and finally, a brand new character class known as the Bladesinger. We’ll take a VERY in-depth look at the character themes tomorrow in their own special feature, but the book gives you thirteen: Bregan D’aerthe Spy, Dead Rat Deserter (Wererat!), Devil’s Pawn, Harper Agent, Heir of Delzoun, Iliyanbruen Guardian, Neverwinter Noble, Oghma’s Faithful, Pack Outcast (Werewolf! ), Renegade Red Wizard, Scion of Shadow, Spellscarred Harbinger and Uthgardt Barbarian. I have mixed feeling on the themes ranging from “Holy hell, that’s awesome” for the lycanthropes and “Wow, that is pretty underwhelming” for the Red Wizard. For the former, I was really pleased to see Lycanthropes get their biggest “player character” push ever, while as a long time fan of Thay, I was disappointed to see how well, weak Red Wizards are in 4th Edition. I’m by no means a power gamer or stat min/max’er, but still, the Red Wizards seemed…far less impressive that I would have expected.

Choosing one of these themes (which the book all but insists that you do) gives you a new starting feature to lay on top of everything else your character would have, along with some additional features and optional powers you can pick up as you level up. Each Character Theme has specific class and race prerequisite, although many are merely suggestions instead of hard and fast rules ala AD&D (No halfing wizards!) When you choose a Character Theme as your specific background, you also get to add a +2 bonus to a specific skill related to said theme OR you can pick one of those background skills and add it to your class’s skill list and even become trained in it. Themes were something completely missing from the original 4th Edition books, and it’s interesting to see players getting some new stat and power bonuses. My only complaint is that several themes are unbalanced and it would have been nice to have more than thirteen. Perhaps twenty or so, Because of the imbalance, you’ll quickly see certain ones become prevalent over others.

Racial Variants provides two new Dwarf types to play as, along with four new Elf types. Of course, longtime D&D fans will recognize all of these and it’s nice to have these specific sub-races back with distinctions on how they differ from their generic counterparts. Say welcome back to Shield Dwarves, Gold Dwarves, Moon Elves, Sun Elves, Wild Elves and Wood Elves. Choosing any of these races instead of the standard dwarves, elves and Eladrin yet you change the languages, skills and benefits you would otherwise get. For example, a Gold Dwarf gets +5 to any saving throw involving psychic damage or psionics instead of Cast Iron Stomach while a Sun Elf gets +2 to Bluff and Insight instead of the standard bonuses to Arcana and History an Eladrin would otherwise have.

The four new Warpriest Domains are: Corellon, Oghma, Selene and Torm. While Torm and Corellon make sense to me, a Warpriest of Knowledge is a bit…odd to me. Same with a Warpriest of Selene. The book does try to justify these, but I still think someone like Bane, Cyric or even Kelemvor would be better suited to having a specific Warpriest theme after theme. Still, the book does give a slight guide on what Warpriest set from other D&D supplements can be used for a dozen or so other FR gods.

Chapter Two finishes off with the Bladesinger, which is very similar to the 2nd Edition AD&D Fighter/Mage dual class elf. This character class is only supposed to be used by Elves or Eladrin, but with some tweaking, it could make for a good swashbuckler human as well. We’ll cover the Bladesinger in detail on Wednesday but for now, I’ll say it is a pretty interesting class that lets you be both mage and warrior at once and some of their spells are old Gygaxian favorites.

Chapter 3, Factions and Foes is about fifty pages long and the title kind of says it all here. This is where you’ll find a lot of plot hooks around countries or organizations that will make up the majority of your antagonists in a Neverwinter setting. You’ve got Lord Neverember, The Abolethic Sovereignty, a cult of Asmodeus worshippers known as the Ashmadai, Thay, the Netherese, the Cult of the Dragon, the Harpers, Mind Flayers and more. Each section tells you about a faction’s goals, allies, enemies, relationships and more. You’ll also get stats for some monsters and NPCs here along with suggestions for possible encounters in each area. Neverwinter is pretty much populated by very low level characters and monsters – almost shockingly low in some areas. For example, Neverember is only a Level 7 Soldier while Valindra Shadowmantle, a lich and Thayan higher-up is only Level 9. Maybe it’s because I grew up with 1st-3rd Edition, but that really low to me and she’s the highest level NPC in the book. IF you have characters that have been playing for a while that you just want to move into Neverwinter for a change of pace, you’ll have to make up some new enemies or expect your players to steamroll through the region.

Examples of some of the cast and creatures you’ll find in Chapter 3 are: two aboleths, a grell(!), two kinds of Nothic, some devils, Unhallowed Wight, stats for undead members of the Neverwinter Nine (!), stats for Clariburnus Tanthal, Werewolf Stormcallers and more. Unfortunately, you’re not going to get any real Harper information which is really odd since neither the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting nor its Player’s Guide had any real information aside from “They broke up and the band is getting back together.” It would have been nice to see this FINALLY fleshed out. Aside from that minor quibble, Foes and Factions give both players and the DM a lot of story hooks and new enemies (maybe even allies?) to encounter in Neverwinter. It’s very well done and contains the kind of depth a lot of people were hoping to find in 4th Edition.

The final chapter of the book, Gazetteer takes up half the pages contained therein and it pretty much answers all the complaints people had about earlier 4th Edition Forgotten Realms publications. However the section doesn’t spend much, if any, time talking about the past – everything is in the present. So again, for those of you looking to bridge between third and fourth edition’s Neverwinter, there won’t be much here for you. For everyone else, CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT. You want legends about why Neverwinter stays warm even in a region where it should be freezing? You get TWO (not just the fire elementals heating the water one). Do you want to learn about all sorts of important locations and buildings within the city of Neverwinter? It’s here? Interested in the stats around the Lost Crown of Neverwinter, which the D&D Encounters are currently revolving around? They’re in here! Want your characters to learn secret special moves from Drizzt Do’Urden himself? You can! There is more detail about the area of Neverwinter in this book than previous 4th Edition campaign settings have given to entire WORLDS. For someone like myself who likes to read sourcebooks as much as play in them, this is wonderful.

There are a few minor annoyances I have with this chapter, like the Kraken and the obvious Clash of the Titans remake joke inserted into here a year or so too late. I also didn’t like how both chapters three and four spent emphasized the presence of Chartilifax the dragon…but then never give its stats. However, compared o in-depth information on things like The Dread Ring, the ecology of the Illithids in Gauntlgrym and more, the good really outweights the bad here.

The last thing to talk about is the art. It’s pretty hit or miss. I’ll admit I am one of those that preferred the art from the 2nd Edition AD&D error to what we currently get, but as I seem to be in the majority on that one, I wish Wizards would push the current D&D artists toward the level of quality we had “when I was a kid.” You whippersnappers today don’t know how good we had it! Seriously though, some of the art in the book is really good. I adore the cover of the campaign setting and there’s a piece where a Mind Flayer is eating a humanoid that is just disturbing. Most of the art in Neverwinter is amongst the best I’ve seen come out of 4th Edition, but all that comes to a grinding halt when you hit the end of the book. Specifically I’m talking about Evernight. Wow is the art here almost comically bad. Honestly I think that’s what they were going for, or at least I hope so. I look at things like the art for the Corpse Market and think either, “This is Evil Ernie awful!” or, “They honestly paid someone for this?” Again, the negatives I had with this campaign setting are very minor, and to be honest, Neverwinter is easily the best fourth edition book I’ve gotten my hands on so far, but when the art is bad, wow, it’s really bad. I’ve purposely tried to include what I found the best pieces to accompany this review.

Overall, while the Neverwinter Campaign Setting has a few minor issues, the overall book is a wonderful one from beginning to end. It’s honestly the best product I’ve seen Wizards of the Coast put out for 4th Edition so far and I honestly think if this version of Dungeons & Dragons had started out with products this strong, the backlash against leaving the d20 system wouldn’t have been so severe. If you’re playing 4th Edition at all, this is well worth picking up. If you’ve been putting off 4th Edition for a myriad of reasons, this is the campaign setting to start with. If the rest of the Nerverwinter theme products coming out are just as good as this one, than Wizards has a sure fire success on its hands. If you’ve picked it up, by all means, let’s talk about it.

Join us back here at Diehard GameFAN each day this week as we take a more in-depth look at some of the specific sections in Neverwinter. Tuesday we tackle the Character Themes, Wednesday is the Bladesinger, Thursday are actual stats of monsters and NPCs and Friday we’ll finish things off with the Warpriests. To learn more about Neverwinter and all the products surrounding it, visit ExploreNeverwinter.com. To learn more about Dungeons & Dragons, visit the official home page. Finally to buy a video game based on Neverwinter using 3rd Edition rules, you can buy Neverwinter Nights: Diamond Edition from GOG.com for only $9.99.

The Black Moon Handbook originally began its existence as Ghost Stories a free bonus for various Shadows of Esteren Kickstarters like Travels and The Monastery of Tuath, but eventually the project became so big that the Esteren team divided Ghost Stories into two separate works –a fiction collection entitled Hauntings (which we will review down the road) and The Black Moon Handbook, a supplement that acts as both a book for GMs to run spooky occurrences in their SoE games, and as an in-game item that PCs can find and use in their travels. You don’t see something like that very often. As such, this makes The Black Moon Handbook a bit of an experiment which succeeds and fails in very different ways.

The best part about The Black Moon Handbook is the art. Like with any Shadows of Esteren release, the art is by far the best you will see out of any gaming product in our industry. For three years running, Shadows of Esteren has picked up our “Best Art” award in our year end awards and between The Black Moon Handbook and Occultism, it’s definitely the front runner to get the award again this year. Seriously, the book’s art is that fantastic and even if you don’t plan to play Shadows of Esteren, it is worth picking up the books just for the art and stories.

The bad news is that The Black Moon Handbook is the worst written book for Shadows of Esteren so far. Hmm. Let me rephrase that. The Black Moon Handbook is the worst TRANSLATED book for Shadows of Esteren so far. If you’re new to the game or merely a casual fan of it, you might not know that Shadows of Esteren is a French game and each book is written in French and then eventually translated into the English language. All of the previous releases were fantastic. You couldn’t tell that the games were localized. With The Black Moon Handbook though, it’s really obvious. Grammar, sentence structure, phrasing and the like are all very off in the English translation. Some parts of the book are sound and actually read like they were written by someone fluent in English. Other parts read like they used Google Translate to localize the text into English. It’s very disjarring. As someone who reads, writes and speaks both English and French, I could see what the passages were trying to say, but also how whole paragraphs could have been stated/translated better. This made the book hard to read at times, and more importantly, hard to enjoy. Hell, some of the text is STILL IN FRENCH and they didn’t bother to translate things at all. In one of the adventures, an “Item of Power” has its stats and mechanics still in French. There is no English translation for it. That’s extremely sloppy and goes back to highlight how exceedingly poor the translation of The Black Moon Handbook is. So many of you that pick this supplement up will have to have Google Translate on standby if you play this adventure. Due to the lack of quality in the translation you may want to wait and pick this release up once (IF) the digital versions are corrected…or not at all for a print copy.

So now that we’ve got that big warning about the translation out of the way, let’s talk about what you will find in The Black Moon Handbook. The book is primarily written as if it was written by an in-game author, Steren Slàine, who is an occultist in the Shadows of Esteren world. As well, you will be sidebars which act and notations or critical (snide) commentary from a skeptic named Enly Mac Bedwyr. This means the topics in the book often contain two opposing viewpoints – one who believes in ghosts and one who believes only in cold, hard science. It is primarily up to the reader to decide, which author is right – if either. Well, at least until the last two pages when the book makes it abundantly clear which is right by having one of the two die horribly in a short piece of fiction that showcases their belief structure is horribly wrong.

The first chapter gives an overview of hauntings in Tri-Kazel. How they can occur, traditions, folklore, legends and spiritual beliefs. That sort of thing. Haunted houses and spectral manifestations are the bulk of the piece though as the “author” gives theories and conjecture as to how a haunting can occur and the way one can rid a location of the ghost tied to it. The book also designated a difference between a haunting and cursed place, the latter of which is a haunting that was no exorcised or where terrible things keep happening in a once mildly haunted area. You’ll find mechanics for spiritual combat, exorcisms and possession if you wish your Shadows of EsterenBlack Moon Handbook herself.

Chapter three is “Ghost Hunting” and it contains five story seeds. I can’t say that they are adventures since the pieces aren’t fully fleshed out. It’s merely the framework and guidelines for turning these pieces into adventures. A GM will have to do a lot of the work themselves, but each of these seeds are fairly straightforward and simple enough to pull off. The book does say that each seed requires little prep work which is true, as each piece should take no longer than one or two sessions to get through. Besides those scenarios, there is advice on homebrewing your own haunted adventures in Tri-Kazel, a few maps and information on education in Gwidre, which is helpful as your first potential adventure takes place in one.

“Rounding Up Stray Souls” is the first adventure and it takes place in a boarding school. One of the students has gone missing and the characters are hired to find out what happened to her. At the same time another student is starting to see her ghost and slowly but surely things begin to happen? Is the school actually haunted or is it a case of teenage imagination leading to mass hysteria amongst the students? In truth, either can be correct. The story is designed so that the GM can pick either a supernatural or mundane cause behind the events at the school – whichever fits his or her purposes better. In fact, all of the adventures on this collection, save one, give you the choice of supernatural or mundane events behind the adventures. I personally prefer the non-supernatural choices simply because they are more interesting. A bonus that comes with doing the mundane choices is that when you finally DO spring an actual ghost on the players, they’ll be so used to “Scooby-Doo” endings that they won’t be expecting a real haunting, thus making it all the more memorable. If there is one thing I have learned from decades of playing and running Call of Cthulhu is that horror games run the risk of their monsters become the equivalent of Kobolds or Orcs in D&D if you use them too much.

The second and third adventures are tied together and, in fact, really should be one piece rather than two. I’m not sure why the authors made this into two as the first one doesn’t have a real ending and the second really doesn’t work as a stand-alone. The attempts by the writers are…not good. Let’s leave it at that. ANYWAY, “The Key to the Past” sees the characters having to enter a haunted castle. Why? They have been hired to retrieve paperwork that will allow their employer to own the property and then tear it down to make way for a new road. Hey, new infrastructure and a terrible evil place gets razed. Win-win, right? Well, not for the characters who can’t leave once they enter due to the machinations of all the ghosts that dwell within. What follows is a survival horror type affair where the players have to figure out how to escape the castle. The next part, “Bloody Trail” is why the characters are released. It’s to track down the last surviving member of the clan who owned the castle in “The Key to the Past,” who is not only a NPC from Chapter Two, but also a paranoid psychotic assassin who is why all the ghosts are in the castle to begin with. Fun times as you track down this character.

“The Return of the Missing One” is the fourth adventure in this collection. Here a husband long thought dead has returned after fifteen years. He looks very different physically though. Is the answer a con man trying to play off a wealthy widow’s grief or is it that the soul of her husband has taken up residence in a new body. Again, the choice is up to the person running the adventure. This was my favorite in the collection as it’s a lot of fun and can go many different ways.

Our fifth and final adventure is “Spectral Dance.” Here the PCs have to figure out what caused a mass killing at a ballroom gala. Thirty people died at this soiree with people rumbling that a local legend, an apparition known as the WIng of Death is responsible. Was it? This adventure has a lot of detective work and in many ways feels like Call of Cthulhu adventure. It’s a lot of fun whether you go for a supernatural reason or not. The PCs will have to really work to solve this one!

Chapter Four ends the book with a “Bestiary.” Here you will find the stats and ecology of four different supernatural creatures. This is pretty cut and dry. All of the creatures are fabulous and the art that goes with them….well, it’s Shadows of Esteren. There is no better art in tabletop gaming right now.

So that’s the book. The English translation can be BRUTAL at times, but the actual meat contained in the Black Moon Handbook is a lot of fun. It’s a fine supplement that just needs to be re-translated in parts. You get a nice amount of fluff, some new monsters, four or five adventures and a lot of information about the supernatural (or what passes for it) in Tri-Kazel. It’s not the best release for Shadows of Esteren so far, but if the localization can get fixed, it’s well worth picking up if you are a fan of the game.

One of the most popular games in my household is Call of Catthulhu. Even my wife and her friends, who do not roleplay, love the game and find it creepy and adorable at the same time. I reviewed the basic version of the game nearly two years ago and the first two books of the deluxe version (The Nekonomicon and Unaussprechlichen Katzen) in Q2 2014.

Worlds of Catthulhu is very different from previous Call of Catthulhu releases. This book is not needed to play the game by any means. Instead, it is a collection of nine different worlds or settings to play in. Think of it in the same way Dungeons & Dragons has Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Planescape, Spelljammer, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Mystara, Birthright, Maztetica and other very different settings in which you can use the core rules. Eight of the settings in Worlds of Catthulhu are very brief, only containing six to ten pages of background and fluff each, meaning you as the Cat Herder (DM) will have to do a lot of prep work to fill in in the blanks. The ninth of these worlds (actually the first in the book) is a very different story, clocking in at seventy-two pages (more than half the book!) so you might get a bit of information overload compared to the brevity of the other options. Of course, the most detailed setting is by Joel Sparks, creator of Call of Catthulhu, while the other eight were Kickstarter stretch goals, so this explains the difference in length. Let’s take a look at all nine campaign settings now and show you how they differ from each other.

First up is “The Cats of Fuiry.” This setting is essentially the classic Fae courts of British folklore, but with cats instead of hobgoblins, faeries, and the like. As is common with Call of Catthulhu, there are a lot of cat name derived puns, such as the Seelie Queen Titania being Catania here and Queen Mab becoming Queen Moab. This setting has far less to do with combat or detective works than any of the others featured in this book (or the core releases). Instead, the setting focuses more on Court intrigue, social/status climbing and political machinations. As such, if you’re more of a dungeon crawl fan, “The Cats of Fuiry” will probably be too “talking heads” for your liking. If, however, you like games such as Vampire: The Masquerade or Birthright, then this will be right up your alley. Now, that’s not to say “The Cats of Fuiry” can’t have physical combat or mysteries to solve – just that the FOCUS is on improving your position at court. A good Cat Herder will be able to tailor this setting to their players’ preferences, all while staying true to the core idea for the setting.

“The Cats of Fuiry” also contains five roles that define your cat’s role at Court. These do not replace the “character classes” from the core rules, but are merely a new facet specifically for this setting. You have Aerialist, Changeling, Knight, Sorcerer and Courtier. All are pretty self-explanatory and get two or three pages devoted to them, except for Sorcerer, who gets about ten due to rules for different kinds of spells. “The Cats of Fuiry” also contains mechanics for social climbing, ideas for potential stories, lists of influential NPCs the PCs can befriend or antagonize and a full glossary to help you remember jargon and vernacular.

There are also two Catventures for “The Cats of Fuiry.” The first is “The Dragonfly Ball.” This is a fancy dress ball where every cat must dress up in a dragonfly costume. A good portion of the adventure is trying to wrangle up a costume for your PC so that they can attend. Then, once at the ball, the characters may discover an Unseelie plot to assassinate a high ranking (Grand) cat of the Seelie Court. The second adventure is “A Night Under Arms,” and it is here where combat fans will get to have some fun. It’s a short look at how combat is done for this setting, and it is geared primarily for Knight characters. It’s cute but limiting. Still, it’s a good way to showcase how different combat is here than in other settings.

The second setting in Worlds of Catthulhu is ” Iron Edda: Claws of Metal & Bone.” It’s essentially a cat version of Iron Edda. This setting uses Norse Mythology in terms of time frame, geography and gods as the cats deal with the oncoming of Catnarok. There are is an interesting story/adventure seed generator in this section, but other than that, what is here lacks any real substance or detail. It feels like more of an attempt on the author’s part to sell his own game rather than contribute anything of merit to Call of Catthulhu, which I personally find distasteful. This is easily the worst/weakest offering of the bunch.

Setting #3 is “Swords of Catthulhu.” This is a cute high fantasy setting revolving around Castle Felsmark. Although the section is only six pages long, it’s pretty in-depth, featuring many locations for PC’s to visit and for Cat Herders to set catventures around. Speaking of catventures, the section ends with a one page adventure where the PCs have been brought in as castle mousers but may eventually uncover a plot by Hatspurr of Catcosa to influence the kingdom in malevolent ways. It’s a nice piece rounding out an excellent section.

Next up is “Gatos De Los Muertos.” This takes place in 1892 in Arizona, which didn’t achieve statehood until 1912, but was owned by the US since the late 1840s, so that makes the setting one of a border town. I’m not sure why the book constantly refers to this section as “1880s Mexico,” though. That would be like calling a 1920s adventure in Alaska “Early 20th Century Russia.” Anyway, this section is actually more of an adventure than a setting, because only one page is devoted to the actual background. Locations, humans, other cats and the like each get a sentence at most devoted to them, while the other four pages are pure catventure. Here, undead cats (and dogs) are returning from the grave with vile intentions. The PCs must seek out the reason why and put the dead to rest once more. Again, it’s a cute little piece, good for a one shot, but little more due to the lack of setting depth.

“Galaxy Warriors Vs, the Robot Cats” is setting numero five. This is blatantly a Star Wars meets old school Battlestar Galactica homage, but it’s a cute one. Again, this is far more adventure than an actual fleshed out setting for people to use, but who doesn’t know Star Wars (or Sci-Fi tropes in general), right? This is a pretty easy piece to flesh out. The adventure starts off on Cattooine, featuring an attempt to warn the Hero’s aunt of killer robots, meeting up with a wise man and his lightstick, and so on. My favorite part was the Empurror (Purrpatine?). There’s a lot of great puns and family friendly fun abounds in this one.

“Big Cats” is next, and this allows you to play as jungle/savannah cats. Tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards, panthers, cheetahs, cougars and more can all be found here. There are no stat changes or extra health levels. You’re just big cats; no scaling. There are a few adventures seeds and one full Catventure when the PCs are a pride of lions trying to save their cubs from mysterious kidnappers while also dealing with the local chimp population. Another fun piece.

“The Great Catsby” is next and with only four pages devoted to it, this is the shortest setting in the book. It’s Prohibition-Era America and the cats are living it up in the Roaring Twenties, just like their human counterparts. Parties, booze and drugs run rampant, but where did all this corruption come from? Could it be that something sinister is behind the scenes making humans dance to their tune? The cats know something strange is going on and it is up to them to save the day! It’s an interesting, albeit bare bones entry, but since it’s close to the usual time period one plays Call of Cthulhu, it’s probably the easiest of the settings to fully flesh out.

Our penultimate setting is Catthulhu: Gaslamp & Gearbox. Think of it like Call of Cthulhu‘s Cthulhu By Gaslight setting for Victorian-Era gaming. This is not the happy Victorian time period you see glamorized in books and movies; no, this is the Industrial Revolution, where grime, soot, homelessness and greed are dominant. You have different “character classes” from the core game for this setting (eight in all) and most will be homeless or ferals rather than purebreds or the like. There are a couple sample locations (although there is a noticeable editing error in that the locations are numbered 1, 2, 4, 3.) and a cute adventure where cats have to stop the machinations of some rats.

We now come to the final setting in Worlds of Catthulhu, “The Catthulhu Code.” It’s not really a setting as much as it is a long list of Catbals – secret societies of cats dedicated to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. The primary mystery is trying to find a way back to The Garden, or Eden as we would call it, while also preventing the followers of Catthlhu and/or the Serpent from succeeding in a myriad of evil schemes.

Overall, Worlds of Catthulhu is a cute book. It’s not one you actually NEED to play Call of Catthulhu. You can just get by with the core two books or even the basic game. Worlds of Catthulhu is fun to read though, and one of the nine settings it contains may be just what you are looking to use in your own game. If you primarily homebrew your games, you shouldn’t feel obligated to purchase Worlds of Catthulhu. If, however, you prefer published adventures and campaign settings, this is pretty much up your alley. Either way, Worlds of Catthulhu is a fine addition to the Catthulhu line, and I know I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next for the game.

Every runner has an origin story; we just rarely ever hear them. Established characters in the Sixth World canon are generally introduced to us after having been veterans of the shadows for many years. It’s rare a character is seen being exposed to the underbelly of the Oligarchy (or Coporatocracy if you want to be blunt) that controls the planet in the 2070s. Even when you and your chummers make their own PCs for Shadowrun, you rarely act out the origins of a character as you might the embrace of your Vampire: The Masquerade PC. Instead, you just whip up the character and the backstory is either told through sessions via flashbacks, story hooks or general PC conversation. That’s what makes Wolf & Buffalo an interesting piece, as you see a character getting exposed to the harsh reality of life in the shadows with no warning whatsoever and how they react to the insanity of it all. It’s a point of view we rarely get, and so even though much of the perspective is, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? SO MANY BULLETS! BODY COUNT HIGH! NOT A GOOD DAY!” it’s nice to see something other than a jaded snark filled reaction to corporate fueled gloom and doom.

Lena is your average young teenage girl in the Sioux Nation. She’s got a dysfunctional family, a government that treats her as a second-class citizen since she’s half Anglo (Remember this is the Sioux Nation. In Shadowrun prejudice runs all ways, be it white, black, troll or ghoul.) and a life she was hoping to improve by joining the SDF (I kept reading it as RDF and I was like, “Veritech rip-offs are in CGL’s OTHER game line.”). Unfortunately the government found a cheap out to excuse her for service, even if they didn’t specifically state her rejection was due to not being pure Native American.

Of course, if Wolf and Buffalo was just about late teen angst and the struggles of growing up half-Lakota, half-white, this would be more a tale for Sherman Alexie or Americo Paredes rather than a writer for Shadowrun. Instead we have to have some sort of Catalyst (no pun intended) that brings Lena into life within the shadows. In this case, it’s a smuggling ring gong wrong, the destruction of her family, attempted rape with a side of murder thrown in and a late awakening to her shamanistic potential. That’s quite a lot to be hit with in a single day – and all before she’s legally old enough to vote, to boot.

The rest of the story basically has Lena blundering around, trying to stay alive as people try to kill her and friends try to help her (and die as a result. Seriously, she’s Clementine from The Walking Dead bad in this regard, but far more likeable). Lena finds herself in over her head with talisman smuggling, “demon” summoning and not one but two totems making their presence (and requests) known to her. The end result is a fast paced story with a higher body count than most full-length Shadowrun novels and a story that shows you just how strange life can be in the Sixth World, not to mention how quickly things can change. One minute you might be the mayor of Seattle, and the next, a highly sophisticated A.I. has taken over your body and you’re dropping your pants in public, defecating on a street performer.

Wolf & Buffalo is a really good story and I enjoyed the chaotic nature of the tale. Sure, the protagonist was in over her head, whined constantly and really only survived because everyone else took a bullet (or ritual knife) for her, but it makes sense. I mean, when you were 17/18, could you process being a channel for ancient spirits to funnel magical energies through while being tasked to recover a sacred artifact to your people and dodge heavy fire? No, you’ll probably piss yourself. So Lena is an extremely believable character. Hell, she’s even likeable in spite of being the type of character who’s usually relegated to the supporting role of a story and who you get really annoyed with – especially when they show up in a summer blockbuster. Thankfully good writing saves the day.

That’s not to say the entire story is without fault. I do feel the climax/ending is very weak. Not only is it very similar to the same ending used in the author’s full length novel Borrowed Time (which is really good and you should purchase it), but it involves not one, but TWO Deus Ex Machinas to get the main character out alive. One alone is acceptable, but weak. TWO, however, did have me roll my eyes and wish for something better. So a great start, but a really weak finish. The end does detract from the overall quality of the story, but it’s still a good read and worth getting if you’re a Shadowrun fan.

Finally, as this is a piece of “Enhanced Fiction,” we get some stat blocks at the end of the book. This is another weak area. I love that the main character got statted and can be used as an NPC in your own adventures. The second character, however, dies in the book, so I don’t see the point of giving them half a page of stats. I’d have given this to one of Lena’s friends that survived (or anyone who survived the story really) as that would be more useful overall. The two stat blocks are the only “crunch” you’ll get in this, so hopefully you’re just looking for a fine short story that allows you to spend some free time in the Sixth World. With a price tag of only three bucks, you’ll certainly get your money’s worth with Wolf & Buffalo.